dramatic opinions and essays by g. ber nard shaw

DRAMATIC OPIN ION S

AND ESSAYS BY G . BER

NARD SHAW

CONTAINING AS WELL

A WO R D O N T H E D RAM AT I C

OPIN IONS AND ESSAYS OF G . BER

NARD SHAW BY JAMES HUNEKER

V OLUME TWO

N EW YORK : BRENTANO’

S

MCMV I

CONTENTS

V o lume I I

TH E NEWMAGDA AND TH E NEW CYPRIENNEM ISS NETHERSOLE AND MRS . KENDALSOME OTHER CRITI CSTH E SECOND DAT ING OF SHERIDAN“

TH E SPACIOUS TIMESDALY UNDAUNTEDBLAM ING TH E BARDMORRIS As ACTOR AND DRAMATISTTH E RED ROBE

ON DEADHEADS AND OTHER MATTERSIBSEN AHEAD !

PEER GYNT IN PARISLITTLE EYOLFTOUJOURS SHAKESPEAREIBSEN WITHOUT TEARSRICHARD HIMSELF AGA INBETTER THAN SHAKESPEARESATAN SAVED AT LASTTHE NEW IBSEN PLAY

Contents

OLIVIAMR. WILSON BARRETT AS THE MESSIAHFOR ENGLAND, HOME AND BEAUTYTH E ECHEGARAY MATINEESGALLERY ROWDYISMMADox BROWN

,WATTS

,AND IBSEN

SHAKESPEARE IN MANCHESTERMEREDITH ON COMEDYMR. PINERO ON TURNING FORTYMADAME SANS-GENEJOHN GABRIEL BORKMANA DoLL’s HOUSE AGAINIBSEN TRIUMPHANTMAINLY ABOUT SHAKESPEAREROBERTSON REDIVIVUSLORENz ACCIo

GHOSTS AT THE JUBILEEMR. GRUNDY’S IMPROVEMENTS ON DUMAS“HAMLET”

AT SEVERAL THEATRESTH E THEATRESROMANCE IN ITS LAST DITCHVEGETARIAN AND ARBOREALCHIN CHON CHINOSHAKESPEARE AND MR . BARRIEON PLEASURE BENTA BREATH FROM THE SPAN ISH MAINHAMLET REVISITED

Contents

PEACE AND GOOD WILL TO MANAGERSTAPPERTIT ON CE SARMR. PINERO’S PASTBEAUMONT AND FLETCHERSHAKESPEARE’S MERRY GENTLEMENTH E DRAMA IN HO ! TONMR . CHARLES FROHMAN ’S M ISS IONTH E DRAMA PURIFIEDKATE TERRYV AN AMBURGH REVIVEDG . B . S : VIVISECTEDVALEDICTORY

vii

THE NEW MAGDA AND THE NEWCYPRIENNE

Magda: a play in four acts . Translated by LouisN . Parker from H ermann Sudermann

’

s“H ome .

”

Lyceum Theatre, 3 June, 1896.

The Queen’

s Proctor a comedy in three act s.

Adapted by H e rmanMerivale from Divo rcons,”by

V icto rienSardou and E. de Najac. Royalty Theatre,2 June , 1896.

N ALL the arts there is a distinction between the merephysica l artistic faculty, consisting Of a very finesense Of color , form , tone , rhythmic movement , and

so on, and that supreme sense Of humanity which alonecan raise the art work created by the physical artisticfacu lties into a convincing presentment Of l i fe . Take theart o f acting, for instance . The physical ly gi fted actorcan fill in a conventional arti stic outline with great charm .

H e—o r she ( I real ly mean she , as wi l l appear presently )—can move exquisitely within the prescribed orbit Of adance , can ring out the measure Of a l ine Of blank verseto a hair ’s-breadth , can devise a dress wel l and wear itbeautiful ly , can , in short , carry out with infinite fascination the design Of any dramatic work that aims at sensuous and romantic beauty alone . But present this samefascinating actress with a work to the’ execution o f whichthe sense Of humanity is the only clue , in which there i sno verse to guide the voice and no dance to guide thebody , in which every l ine must appear ponderously dulland insignificant unless its truth as the utterance o f a

deeply moved human soul can be made apparent , in whichthe epicurean admiration Of her as an exquisite apparition, heightened, Of course , by sex attraction, can be but

Dramat ic Opinions and Essays

a trifling element in the deep sympathy with her as afel low-creature which is produced by a great dramatist’srevelation Of ourselves to our own consciousness throughher part, and then you may very possibly see your bewitching artist making a quite childish failure on the veryboards where a l ittle while before she was disputing thecrown Of her profession with the greatest actresses in theworld .

I f you doubt me , then do you, if you have had the goodfortune to see Mrs . Patrick Campbel l play Militza in“For the Crown” like an embodied picture or poem Ofthe decorative romantic type, now gO and see her playMagda . And go soon ; for the play wi ll not run long :human nature wil l not endure such a spectacle for manyweeks . That is not the fault Of the play, which does notfai l until she kills it. At the end Of the first act , beforeMagda appears

,the applause has a rising flood in it which

shows that the house is caught by the promise Of thedrama . Ten minutes after Mrs . Campbel l ’s entry it i sall over : thenceforward the applause , though complimen

tary and Copious , is from the l ips outward . The firstnight audience had for the most part seen Bernhardt andDuse. in the part, and knew what could be done with it .Nobody, I presume , was SO foolishly unreasonable as toexpect anything approaching the wonderful impersonation by Duse at Drury Lane

,when she first played the

part here last year . Mrs. Campbell has not l ived longenough to get as much work crammed into her entirerepertory as Duse gets into every ten minutes Of herMagda . Nor has she had sufficient stage experience topolish Off the part with the businessl ike competence Of thegolden Sarah

,coming down with her infal l ible stroke on

every good stage point in the dialogue, and never letting

2


the play drag for an instant . But even if the audiencehad never seen either Bernhardt or Duse , it could nothave mistaken Mrs . Campbell for a competent Magda ,although it might very possibly have mistaken the playfor a du ll and prosy one . The fact is , i f Mrs . Campbel l ’sirresistible physical gi fts and her cunning eye for surfaceeff ects had only allowed her to look as si lly as she real lywas in the part (and in one or tw o passages She verynearly achieved this ) , her failure w ould have been as

Obvious to the greenest novice in the house as it was tome . Take such a dramatic moment, for instance , as that

in which Magda receives , first the card , and then the visitOf V on Keller , the runaway father Of her child . Let us

leave Duse ’s incomparable acting Of that scene out of thequestion , even i f it is impossible to forget it . But withMrs . Campbell it was not merely a fall ing short Of Dusethat one had to complain Of . She literally did nothing .

From the point at which Miss Caldwel l, as the servant ,

brought in the card, to the point at which Magda , heremotion mas tered , good-humoredly shakes hands with thefel low (how capitally vulgarly Sarah did Mrs .

Campbel l did not display as much feel ing as an ordinarywoman Of fifty does at the arrival o f the postman .

Whether her nonenity at this point was the paralysis Ofa novice w ho does not know how to express what she

feels , or whether it was the vacuity Of a woman who doesnot feel at al l

,I cannot determine . The result was that

the audience did not real ise that anything particular wassupposed to be happening ; and those who had seen theplay before wondered why it should be SO much less intelligible in Engl i sh than in a foreign language .

Let me give one other instance . Quite the easiest linein the pi ece 15 the prima donna ’s remark , when she hears

3


about Marie’s l ieutenant lover, A lieutenant ! with us

it’

s always a tenor .” Mrs . Campbel l actual ly succeeded indelivering that speech without making anyone smile . Atthe other end Of the compass Of the piece we have theterrible l ine which strikes the Colonel dead at the end“H OW do you know that he was the only one ? (meaningH ow do you know that this man Von Keller, whom youwant me to marry to make an honest woman Of me

,is

the only man who has been my lover ‘Mrs . Campbel lmade an Obvious attempt to do something with this lineat the last moment . But there is nothing to be done withi t except prepare its effect by acting before hand so as tomake the situation live, and then let it do its ownwork .

Between these tw o failures I can recall no success ; indeed, I can hardly recall any effort that went far enoughto expose Mrs . Campbel l to the risk Of active failure .Although she was apparently doing her best with thepart

,her best let its best sl ip by her, and only retained

its commonplaces .The part Of Magda is no doubt one in which a youngactress may very well be excused for fail ing. But fromthe broad point of View o f our national interest in art ,it is necessary, when work Of the class o f Sudermann

’sis in question

,to insist on the claim Of the publ ic to

have the best dramas Of the day presented in Englishby the fittest talent . Mrs . Campbell was entitled to herturn ; but now that it is clear that the part does notsuit her, are we to have it locked up lest any otheractress should demonstrate that it can be done better ?Are we to have no chance Of seeing how it would comeout in the hands of the actresses who have shown a special aptitude for this class Of . w ork ? Miss ElizabethRobinsWould certainly not play Militza half as effect

4


ively as Mrs . Campbell ; but can it be doubted by anyone who has seen her play Hilda Wangel that she wouldplay Magda

,especially in the sel f-assertive scenes , twenty

times better than Mrs . Campbel l ? Miss Robins can

assert herself more youthfully , and pity herself morepathetically

,than any actress on our stage . Doubtless

she might fail to convince us in the sympathetic , grandlymaternal phases of the character , but what about MissJanet Achurch for that side O f it ? Miss Achurch , withno copyright monopoly Of “A Doll ’s House, has neverbeen approached as Nora Helmer : Mrs . Campbell ’s at

tempt at Magda is the merest baby-play in comparisonwith that performance . These able and energetic women

who pioneered the new movement have had , so far,l ittle to repay them except unlimited opportunities o f

looking onat fash ionable dramas , in which placidly prettyand pleasant actresses enjoy a heyday Of popular successby exhibiting themselves in expensive frocks , and goingamiably through hal f a dozen tricks wh ich they probablyamuse themselves by teaching to their poodles when theyare at a loss for something better to do . The managers

are quite right to keep act resses Of the calibre o f MissAchurch and Miss Robins out Of such business : theywould be more likely to knock an ordinary fashionableplay to pieces than to become popular pets in it—afterall , one does not want a Great Western locomotive tocarry one ’s afternoon tea upstairs . But i f the managersare going in for Sudermann and Ibsen , and serious workgenerally, then in the name Of common sense let themshow us something more Of the people w ho have provedthemselves able to handle such work, and keep theirpretty doll s for dolls ’ work .

However, i f Mrs . Patrick Campbell has just shown

5


that she is not yet a great actress, she is at any rate

an artist ; and nobody can complain Of her having triedMagda, i f only there is no attempt to prevent othersfrom trying also . The circumstances were not altogether favorable to her . It is true that she was supported by the best Pastor H efferdingh we have seenMr. Forbes Robertson was admirable in the character ;but the al l-important Colonel Schwartze was disastrous °

Mr. Fernandez exhibited every qual ity Of the Old actorexcept the quality Of being able to understand his part.Miss Al ice Mansfield, as the agitated aunt, forgot thatshe was playing first-class drama in the Lyceum Theatre,and treated us to the grimaces and burlesque prolongations Of her words with which she is accustomed to raisea laugh in farcical comedies . And Mr . Gillmore, asLieutenant Max, had not a touch Of the smart Germansubaltern about him . Otherwise there was nothing tocomplain Of. Mr . Scott Buist, whose success as Tesman in Hedda Gabler” has taught him the value Of

thoroughly modern parts , did not, especially in the earlier scenes

,adapt himsel f suffi ciently to the large S ize

Of the theatre, nor could he surpass the inimitable V onKeller Of Sarah Bernhardt’s company ; but, for al l that,he understood the part and played it excellently . MissBrooke’s Marie was spoiled by Mrs . Campbell ’s Magda .

She conveyedthe impression Of being a respectable youngwoman

,with a rather loose and good-for-nothing kind

Of sister, instead Of being clearly weaker in her conventionality than Magda in her independenceMr. Herman Merivale

’

s adaptation Of Divorcons

began by putting me out of temper . First, we had theinevitable tw o servants gossiping about their employers’

affairs, their pretended function being to expound the

6

Dramatic Opinions and Essays

plot,their real one to bore the audience suffi ciently to

make the principles doubly welcome when they arrive .

Why do not those ridiculous people' in the gallery who

persist in hissing the author when al l the mischief isover make themselves useful by venting their destructiverage on those two Sardovian servants ? Then the supernumerary persons—the visitors , and so on—were tiresome

,and did not know how to behave themselves as

people behave in country houses . I do not recommend

the manners Of a dull country house to actors andactresses in private li fe : I am well aware that there isno time for them in London , even i f they were admirablein themselves ; but I do suggest that it is a wasteful mis

take to spend a good deal Of money in mounting a country-house scene realistically

,and then spoil all the il lu

sion by the gush and rush , the violent interest in everything and the eagerly false goodfellowship 50 characteristic Of theatrical at-homes , and so markedly foreign to

county society . Then , again , Cyprienne, instead Of being translated into her English equivalent

,became a

purely fantastic person , nominal ly an Ital ian lady marriedto an English squire , but really a purely imaginary incarnation Of the pet qualities Of her sex . The Italian pre

text involved that most exasperating Of all theatrical foll ies and nuisances , the pet resource of the spurious actorwho goes to his make-up box for character and to somemimic

’

s trick for his speech , a stage foreign accent . Atthe end Of the first act I was in the worst possible temperwith the whole performance , the more so as the incidentOf the electric bel l all but missed fire

,partly because the

bell,far from being startl ing

,was hardly audible

,and

partly because the tw o performers , instead Of stopping

paralysed , and letting the very funny effect make itsel f

7


(as it always does in this way infallibly with Chaumont) ,tried to work it up with excited action and speeches

,

which, Of course, simply distracted attention from ‘

it .

But I was unable to maintain this unfavorable attitude. The shelter Of a furze bush wi l l give courage toa soldier under fire ; and it may be that the tiny shelterfrom a tOO ladylike self-consciousness afforded by theforeign accent made Miss Violet Vanbrugh reckless . Atal l events she let hersel f go to such purpose that beforethe second act was over she had completely changed herprofessional standing. I asked mysel f could this be thesame lady who was lately ambl ing and undulating,

‘withthe most acutely intentional archness and grace, through“The Chil i Widow ,

” and being admired and tolerated asa popular . hostess rather than nailing the attention andinterest Of her audience as an actress . At that time Ishould have abandoned hope Of Miss Vanbrugh as acomedian but for my recol lection o f a certain burlesqueO f “The Master Builder,

” in which— again, Observe, having an excuse for letting herself gO—she impressed meprodigiously . I suspect that Miss Vanbrugh has hithertolamed herself by trying to arrive at Miss Ellen Terry ’ssecret from without inward, instead Of working out herown secret from within outward . However that maybe

,the position into which she sprang last Tuesday, with

the most decisive success, is that Of Mrs . Kendal , which ,owing to the prolonged epidemic Of handsome idiocyamong our leading ladies

,and sentimental inanity among

our authors , has been vacant for a ridiculously longperiod .

“The Queen’s Proctor is now the most amusingplay in London : it is worth going to for nothing elsethan to hear Miss Vanbrugh protest ,

“It is not jealousy,but c—uriosity.

” Mr . Bourchier, a born actor, and in

8

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

MISS NETHERSOLE AND MRS.

KENDAL

Carmen: a dramatic Version Of Prosper Mérimee énovel. By H enry Hamilton. In four acts. GaietyTheatre, 6 June, 1896.

The Wanderer from V enus ; or, Tw enty-four H ours

w ith anAngel : a new and original fanciful comedy.

By Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlow e. New

Grand Theatre, Croydon, 8 June, 1896.

The Greates t of These a play in four acts.

By Sydney Grundy. Garrick Theatre, IO June, 1896.

AM ordinarily a patient man and a culpably indulgentcritic ; but I fear I must ask the responsible parties ,whoever they are , what they mean by this

“Carmen”

business at the Gaiety Theatre ? Are we to have no creditin London for knowing, I wil l not say fine art from fashionable art, because that we unfortunately do not know ,

but at least fashionable art from unfashionable ? Wemay be vague in our notions Of the difference betweena thirteenth-century church and a seventeenth-centuryone , a costume designed by a comic-Opera costumier andone painted by Benozzo GOz z Oli, a Leadenhall Press bookand a Kelmscott Press one, or a Mrs . Ebbsm ith and aMagda ; but at al l events we can distinguish betweenKensington Palace Gardens or Fitz john

’

s Avenue andthe Old Kent Road , between a suit turned out by aSavile Row tailor and one purchased at a Jamaica Roadslopshop

,between the “Century Magazine and a broad

sheet Of bal lads , and between Mrs . Ebbsmith and MariaMartin

,the heroine Of “The Murder in the Red Barn .

”

IO


Why, then, attempt to put us Ofi , at the height Of theseason , with such a piece Of work as th i s new version Of“Carmen” ? I am too good-natured to deliberately set

to work to convey an adequate notion of what a verypoor, cheap, tawdry business it is ; but some idea Of the

class Of audience to which it has been writtendownmayperhaps be gathered from the fact that when Carmen iscajol ing the dragoon in the first act , she repeatedly turnsto the audience— the London audience—and remarks ,aside, He thinks I am in earnest or the like , lest we ,unsophisticated yokels as w e are , might possibly be misledby her arts into accepting her as the sympathetic heroine .

The dialogue only rises, not without effort , to the point

Of making the bare story intel ligible to those Of us w hoknow the opera by heart already. I say the opera ; for

the description Of the work as a dramatic version Of

Prosper Mérimée ’s novel” is quite misleading . I f it were

not for the first scene Of the second act—which oughtto be cut out—nobody could possibly suspect the authorOf having ever read a line Of Merimee . The true originalis , o f course , the l ibretto ; and all the departures madefrom its scenario are blunders . The superfluous scenej ust mentioned could only be rendered endurable by veryexpressive physical acting on the parts Of Carmen andJosé . But the author has so l ittle stagecraft that he makesit take place in the dark

,where

,accordingly, i t i s not

endurable . Again , in the tavern scene , Dolores-Michaelaenters and makes an appeal to Carmen’s better nature !And Carmen , after being stabbed , and dying a screaming,gurgl ing, rattl ing,

“real istic” death, compounded Of al l

the stage colics and convulsions ever imagined,suddenly

comes to l i fe and dies over again in the Older Operaticmanner , l ike Edgardo in “Lucia

,

” warbling“I love you,

I I

Dramat ic Opinions and"Essays

I love you . What is a critic expected to say to suchfolly ?

The execution of this tedious, inept, absurd, and at itsmost characteristic moments positively asinine play onlyemphasized its defects . In the course Of my musical experiences I have seen a great many Carmens . The earl ier

/ ’

Ones aimed at something like the Carmen Of Merimee,the gipsy Of a gentleman

’s imagination, a Carmen withholes in her stockings

,ready to beg

,steal

,fight, or trade

with her own person as a matter Of course , but stil l aCarmen with her point of honor

,scandalized and angry

because José j ealous ly ki lled her hideous Old husbandwith a kni fe thrust instead Of buying her from him inthe correct gipsy manner for a few shillings, and braveto grandeur in confronting her death , brought On her,not by the extravagance Of her own misconduct, but bythe morbid constitutional jealousy of the melancholyhidalgo-dragoon . When Trebelli played the part, forinstance, there was not the sl ightest hint in her performance Of the influence Of that natural istic movementwhich was presently to turn Carmen into a disorderly,lascivious , good-for-nothing factory girl . There wasnothing Of it even in Selina Dolaro ’s Carmen, except thatthe assumption Of one Of Trebelli’s parts by an operabouffe artist was itsel f a sign Of the times . The firstprima donna who definitely substituted the Zola Carmenfor the Mérimée Carmen was Marie Roze, who neverdid anything quite competently, and yet could coax thepublic to come to see her do everything incompetently .

One forgave her Carmen as one forgives Manon Lescautwhatever else she may have been, she was lovable . Thenext notable Carmen was Giul ia Ravogli . Nobody butshe has given us the free, roving, Open-air Carmen, strong

12


Of body, prompt Of hand, genuinely and not ignobly con

temptuous Of civi l ization . But Ravogli, though she playedto every turn O f the orchestra with a masterly understanding Of the score, and a preci sion and punctuali ty Ofpantomimic action which I have never seen surpassedeither by the best French performers in ballet Of the“Enfant Prodigue type , or by such German Wagnerianartists as Alvary in

“Siegfried,” was too roughly real

and powerful for what is at best but a delicately fl imsylittle opera ; and the part w as left to the pretty pettishnesses and ladylike superficialities Of Miss Zélie de Lussan unti l Calve took it up . Calve, an artist Of geniuS,‘divested Carmen of the last rag Of romance and respectabi l ity : it is not possible to describe in decent languagewhat a rapscal l ion she made Of her. But the comedy Ofher audacities was irresistible . Her lewd grin at theofficer after her arrest, the hitch Of the dress by whichshe exhibited her ankle and defined the outline Of hervoluptuous figure for his inspection ; her contemptuouslack Of all interest in Michaela ’s face, followed by aj ealous inspection Of the exuberance Of her hips ; her sel fsatisfied glance at her own figure from the same point o fview in the looking-glass in the second act when sheheard José approaching : all these s trokes were not onlyso many instantaneous dramas in themselves

,taking you

every time into the heart Of the character, but were executed with such genuine artistic force that you couldno more help enjoying them than you could help en

joying the sottishnesses Of Falstaff i f only Falstaff wereplayed by a great comedian . Calve wasted no romanticflattery on her Carmen—allowed her no courage

,

nothing but rowdiness , no heart, no worth, no positivevice even beyond what her taste for coarse pleasures

I 3


might lead her to ; and she made her die with such frightful art that when the last flOpping, reel ing, disorganizedmovement had died out Of her, you felt that there wasnothing lying there but a lump Of Carrion . Here you hadno mere monkey mimicry Of this or that antic Of a streetgirl , but great acting in al l its qual ities , interpretation,invention, selection, creation, and fine execution, with thetrue tragi-comic force behind it . And yet it was hardto forgive Calve for the performance, since the achievement, though striking enough, was, for an artist Of hergi fts, too cheap to counterbalance the degradation Of herbeauty and the throwing away of .her ski l l on a studyfrom vulgar l i fe which was, after all, quite foreign tothe work onwhich she imposed it .Miss Olga Nethersole, in her attempt to exploit thereputation which al l these Opera-singers have made forCarmen, is too heavily handicapped by the inevi table comparison with them . If her acting version had been madeby a dramatist capable Of supplying an equivalent forthe charm and distinction Of Mérimée’s narrative or thedel icate romance Of Bizet’s music ; or i f she herself, byinsight, humor, and finesse Of execution, were able toimpose on the piece, such as it is , a fascinating, quasireal istic character- fantasy Of the Macaire order, she

might possibly have made the play tolerable after theOpera . But none of these conditions are fulfilled for her .She has the staginess Of an Old actress with the inexpertness Of a young one ; her Carmen ridiculously combinesthe real istic sordidness and vulgarity Of a dissolute ragpicker with the Old-fashioned modish airs and graces , themantilla , comb, fan , castanets and dancing-shoes Of thestage Spanish gipsies whom our grandmothers adm ired ;and she has not a spark Of humor. Her vocal accompl ish

I4


ments are so slender that, instead o f genuinely speaking,l ike her colleague, Miss A lexes Leighton, she intones inthe manner Of some o f our naturally voiceless melodramatic actors ; but being unable to complete their effectivesimulation of a powerful voice by copying their sharp,athletic articulation

,she relies rather onmer

’

e inflex ions,which are intolerably monotonous , and too feeble to sendeven her vowels clearly across the footlights . Her facialplay , obscured by a heavily blackleaded impressionistmake-up , seems limited to a couple of expressions : NO. I ,drawn mouth and jaw , with stretched, staring eyes fortragic presentiment o f fate ; No . 2 , for seduction, a smilewith the eyes exactly as be fore and the lips strongly re

tracted to display the lower teeth, both eff ects being puton and off suddenly l ike masks . In short, j udged by thisperformance , Miss Nethersole i s no t yet even a proficientactress , much less a great one . Why, then, i t may beasked, have w e heard so much o f her Carmen ? I can onlyanswer that those who really want to know had better

go and see it. Acting is not the only spectacle that peoplewi l l stop to look at , though it is the only one with whichI am concerned here .

I note with Satis faction that the suburban theatre hasnow advanced another step . On Monday a new playby Mr . Robert Buchanan and his collaborator

,

“CharlesMarlowe ,

” was produced at the new theatre at Croydon—a theatre which is to some of our Strand theatres asa Pullman drawing-room car is to an old second-classcarriage—with a company which includes Miss KateRorke , Mr . Oswald Yorke , Mr . Beauchamp, Mr . Anson ,Miss Eva Moore , and Miss Vera Beringer. The bandplayed the inevitable overture to “Raymond and Mr .

German’

s dances , for all the world as i f we were at the

I S


Vaudeville . I paid three shillings for a stall,and two

pence for a programme . Add to this the price of a firstclass return ticket from London, three and Sixpence (andyou are under no compulsion to travel first class i f secondor third wil l satisfy your sense of dignity ) , and the visitto the Croydon Theatre costs three and tenpence less thanthe bare price of a stall in the Strand . And as Miss KateRorke not only plays the part of an angel in her mosttouching manner

,but flies bodily up to heaven at the

end of the play,to the intense astonishment o f the most

hardened playgoers,there is something sensational to talk

about afterwards . The play is a variation on the Pygmalion and Galatea theme . It is full Of commonplaceready-made phrases to which Mr . Buchanan could easilyhave given distinction and felicity i f he were not absolutely the laziest and most perfunctory workman in theentire universe , save only when he is writing letters tothe papers, rehabi l itating Satan , or committing literaryassault and battery o n somebody whose works he hasnot read . I cannot help suspecting that even the troubleof finding the fami l iar subj ect was saved him by a chanceglimpse Of some review of Mr . Wells ’ last story but one.Yet the play holds your attention and makes you believein it : the born storyteller’s imagination is in it unmistakably, and saves it from the j ust retribution provokedby the author ’s lack of a good craftsman ’s conscience.Mrs . Kendal Should real ly be more cautious than she

was at the Garrick on Wednesday night. When you feeda starving castaway you do not give him a full meal atonce : you accustom him gradually to food by giving himsmall doses Of soup . Mrs . Kendal , forgetting that London playgoers have been starved for years in the matterof acting

,inconsiderately gave them more in the first ten

16


violently polemical and didactic ; and there is nothing theBritish publ ic loves better in a play, provided, Of course ,that it is also dramatic .

“The Greatest o f Theseis dramatic up to the brief but unbearable fourth act

,

which drops al l semblance of drama and is simply andfrankly nothing but the chairman’s superfluous summingup o f the discussion . Ten years ago this play, with itsOpen preaching o f the rights Of humanity as againstvirtues , religions , respectabi l ities, and other manufacturedgoods—especial ly the provincial varieties—would haveranked as an insanity only fit for the Independent Theatre .

TO-day, after Ibsen and Nietzsche , the only Objection toit is that it is rather too crude , parochial , and old- fashioned an expression o f an inspiriting and universal philosophy ; and it went down, accordingly, like one of Dr .

Watts’

s hymns . The general presentation o f the piecew as so far inevitably false as a picture Of Engl ish provincial society that Mrs. Kendal w as a great deal tooclever for Warminster, the atmosphere being that o f

South Kensington Or Regent’s Park rather than of Sal isbury Plain ; but, subj ect to this qual ification , the management was first-rate . Miss Nell ie Campbel l ’s GraceArmitage was a good piece of professional Work— eventhe bril l iant successes of nowadays are seldom that— andMr . Nutcombe Gould and Mr . Kemble were wel l withintheir powers in the other parts . Mr . Rodney Edgcumbe ,no doubt, shocked the principals by describing himself as“stowny brow k

”

; but they wi ll soon get used to that .They have probably found out already that any sort o fdiction is considered good enough for the stage nowadays . As to Mr . Kendal , one can only give him the oldadvice—get divorced . He is a capital comedian ; andyet in the whole course of this play he can only steal one

18


laugh in the first act . For the rest, he outrages his natureand genius fai thfully in support o f his wife in a hopelesspart ; and the audience , i f not delighted, i s at least movedby the melancholy dignity of the sacrifice .

SOME OTHER CRITICS

Dramatic Essays . By John Forster and GeorgeH enry Lew es. Reprinted from the

“Exam iner”

( 1835-38 ) and The Leader”

( 1850 With Notesand an Introduction by William Archer and RobertLow e. London: Walter Scott . 1896.

Mam’

z elle N itouche : a musical comedy in three actsby MM. Meilhac, Milland, and H erve. Royal CourtTheatre , 1 June, 1896.

HE rate of production at the theatres has been so

rapid lately that I am conscious of putting o ff myremarks on performances just as I habitually put

06 answering letters , in the hope that the march of eventswill presently save me the trouble of dealing with them .

My labors , it must be remembered , are the labors O f"

Sisyphus : every week I rol l my heavy stone to the top o fthe hill ; and every week I find it at the bottom again .

To the publ ic the tumbl ing down of the stone is the pointof the whole business : they like to see it plunging and

bounding and racing in a flying cloud o f dust , blackeningthe eyes of a beauti ful actress here and catching aneminent actor-manager in the wind there, flattening outdramatists , demolishing theatres , and generally taking agreat deal on i tsel f, considering its S ize . But the worstof it ( from my point Of view ) i s that when it is al l overI am the only person who is a penny the worse . The

I9


actresses are as beautiful and popular as ever ; the actormanagers wallow in the profits o f the plays I have denounced; . the dramatists receive redoubled commissions ;the theatres reopen with programmes fool isher than before ; and nothing remains of my toy avalanche but thestone at my feet to be rolled up again before the fatigueof the last heave is out of my bones . Sometimes I askmysel f whether anybody ever reads critical articleswhether the whole thing is not a mere editorial illusion,a superstition from the purely academic origin Of criticalj ournalism . That I , under the compulsion o f my dailyneeds, should face the weekly task of writing these columus is intel ligible enough ; but that you , reader ( i f youexist ) , should under no compulsion at al l face the weeklytask of reading them merely to keep me in bread andbutter is an amazing, incredible thing to me . Yet peopledo it. They not only want to hear me chattering aboutMrs . Patrick Campbell, but actually to hear the ghostso f Forster and Lewes chattering about the ghosts of

Macready and Forrest, Charles Kean and Rachel . Hereis Mr . Walter Scott, a publisher who knows by experiencewhat the publ ic will stand inthis way, issuing a handsomethree-and-S ixpenny volume Of the “Examiner” and“Leader articles of these dead and gone critics , editedby Mr. Robert Lowe and my colleague, Mr. Wil liamArcher, who has his own stone to rol l up every week .

The book contains no portrait o f Forster : perhaps theeditors thought that Dickens ’s word-picture Of him as“a harbitrary gent

” could not be improved on ; but therei s a photograph of Lewes which suggests to me the fearful question,

“Are w e at al l l ike that ? ”

I recommend the series of dramatic essays Of whichth is book is the th ird volume to all actors who pretend to

20


be indifferent to the Opinion of such persons as myself ;for it proves beyond contradiction that the actor w hoj

desires enduring fame must seek it at the hands Of the

critic,and not of the casual playgoer . Money and ap

plause he may have in plenty from the contemporarymob ; but posterity can only see him th rough the Spectacleso f the elect : if he displease them, his credit wi l l be interredwith his bones . The world believes Edmund Keanto have been a much greater actor than Junius BrutusBooth solely because Hazlitt thought so . Its belief in theinferiority of Forrest to Macready is not its own opinion ,but Forster’s . The one failure of Charles Kean’

s l i fe thatmatters now i s his failure to impress Lewes in anythinghigher than melodrama . Some day they will reprint myarticles ; and then what will all your puffs and long runs

and photographs and papered houses and cheap successesavail you, O lovely leading ladies and well-tailored actormanagers ? The twentieth century , i f it concerns itsel fabout either of us, will see you as I see you . Thereforestudy my tastes, flatter me , bribe me, and see that your

acting-managers are conscious of my existence and impressed with my importance . l/

Both Lewes and Forster had the cardinal faculty o f

the critic : they could really and obj ect ively see the stage ;and they could analyse what they saw there . In thisrespect Forster is as good as Hazlitt or Lewes : he is afirst-rate demonstrator, and can take an actor to piecesand put h im together again as wel l as anybody . But hisoutlook on the general human life in relation to whichthe theat re must always be judged , i s not so lofty, keen ,and free-m inded as that of Hazlitt, who was somethingo f a genius ; and he had not Lew es

’

s variety of cultuI-‘a

flexibil ity, and fun . I consider that Lewes in some

2 1


respects anticipated me, especially in his free use of vulgarity and impudence whenever they happened to be theproper tools for his j ob . H e had the rare gift of integrityas a critic . When he w as at his business , he seldom re

membered that he was a gentleman or a scholar . In thishe showed himsel f a true craftsman, intent on makingthe measurements and analyses of his criticism as accurate, and their expression as clear and vivid , as possible,instead of allowing himself to be distracted by the vanityo f playing the elegant man of letters , or writing withperfect good taste , or hinting in every line that he was

Labove his work . In exacting all this from himsel f, andtaking his revenge by expressing his most labored conelusions with a levity that gave them the air of being theunpremeditated whimsical ities of a man who had perversely taken to writing about the theatre for the sakeo f the j est latent in his own outrageous unfitness for it,Lewes rolled his stone up the hill quite in the modernmanner of Mr . Walkley, dissembling its huge weight,and apparently kicking it at random hither and thitherin pure wantonness . In fact, he reminds Mr . Wil l iamArcher of a writer cal led “Corno di who wassupposed—among other impostures— to have introducedthis style of writing when Mr . T . P . O

’

Connor inventedthe hal fpenny evening paper in 1888 . But these articleso f Lew es

’

s are miles beyond the crudities Of Di Bassetto,though the combination Of a laborious criticism with arecklessly fl ippant manner is the same in both . Lewes ,by the way, l ike Bassetto, was a musical critic . He wasan adventurous person as critics go ; for he not only wrotephilosophical treatises and feui lletons , but went on thestage, and was denounced by Barry Sullivan as a poor

G. B . S .Maud/2

22


creature,perhaps for the feebleness of his execution ,

but perhaps also a little because he tried to get away fromthe superhuman style of Barry into the path since openedup by Irving . He also wrote plays of the kind which ,as a critic

,he particularly disliked . And he was given

to singing— nothing wi ll ever persuade me that a certainpassage in “The Impressions of Theophrastus Such”

about an amatuer vocalist w ho would persist in wreckinghimself on “

O Ruddier than the Cherry” does not referto Lewes . Final ly he was rash enough to contract amorganatic union with the most famous woman writer

o f his day, a novelist, thereby allowing his miserable affections to triumph over his critical instincts (which heappears , however, to have sometim es indulged claudest inely in spite of himsel f) and so, having devoted someyears to remonstrating with people who persisted in ad

dressing the famous novelist by her maiden name insteadOf as “Mrs . Lewes ,

” he perished after proving conclusively in his own person that “womanly sel f-sacrifice” i san essentially manly weakness . The history of that interesting union yet remains to be written . Neither cynicnor heroine worshipper will ever do it j ustice ; but GeorgeEliot at least paid it the widow ’s compl iment of marryingagain , though she did not select a critic thi s time . These

and other features of Lew es’s career are dealt with fromthe point Of view of the general reader in Mr . Archer ’svery interesting forty pages o f introduction . From mypersonal point of View , they are, on the whole, a solemnwarning. I shall not marry

,morganatically or otherwise .

Eminent lady novelists wi l l please accept th is notice .

Miss May Yohe might , I think , have given us something fresher at the Court Theatre than a revival o f“Mam

’zelle Nitouche . I take it that Miss Yohe is not

23


now living by her profession and compelled to acceptwhat engagements may come her way, leaving to hermanagers the responsibil ity of choosing the piece . Sheis, is she not, in an independent position, gained by al

liance with the British aristocracy, and subj ect to al l thesocial responsibil ities attaching to that sort of independence ? These responsibilities do not

,of course

,demand

that she should share in the patriarchal administrationof the family estate i f she is driven by irresistible instinctsto seek her natural activity on the stage as an artist .Nobody can Object to that alternative course, nor to hersubsidizing the theatre out of her revenues— not earned ,be it remembered, by herself, but derived at some pointor other from the nation’s industries . Clearly the revenuesand the artistic activity cannot honorably be wasted onunworthy or stale entertainments merely, as the professional phrase goes, to give the manageress a show . I fa lady wants nothing more than that, she must conformto social discipl ine and take her Show in the prescribedladyl ike way

,either plastering herself with diamonds and

sitting in an opera-box l ike a wax-figure in a j ewel ler’s

ShOp window, or dressing herself prettily and driving upand down the Row in the afternoon to be stared at by al lthe world and his wi fe . Whether in sanctioning the necessary expenditure for this purpose the nation makes awise bargain or not, shall not be discussed here . Sufficeit to say that it is an extremely l iberal one for the lady,and need not be enlarged so as to include appearances onthe stage as well as in the auditorium and in the Row .

For just consider what would happen i f acting under professional conditions became as fashionable as cycl ing.

We should have every theatre in London taken at extravagant rents by fashionable amateurs ; and -art would

24,


could be necessary ; and yet, as I have said, Mr. Mackinder had not been ten minutes on the stage before he improvised a jest that made every decent person in thetheatre sh iver, and did it, too , in perfect good faith , witha hardworking desire to show his smartness and make hispart “go .

”For the rest, there was nothing to complain

o f, and nothing to admire particularly. Miss FlorenceLevey gave us a very lively and confident imitation—butonly an imitation—Of a skilled dancer and singer. Mr .Tapley, whom I can remember when he was a tenor, canstill inflect certain falsetto tones sufi ciently to be called,by a stretch Of compl iment, a tenorino. Miss Yohe

’

s own

extraordinary artificial contralto had so little tone on thefirst night that it was largely mistaken for an attack of

hoarseness ; and her sentimental song, with its abortedcadence which sought to make a merit and a feature Ofits ownweakness , was only encored, not quite intentionally, Out Of pol iteness . Her sustaining power seems goneshe breathes after every little pharse, and so cannothandle a melody in her Old broad, rich manner ; but doubtless the remedy for this is a mere matter of getting intocondition . As a comic actress she has improved since thedays of “Little Christopher Columbus” ; and the personalcharm and gay grace Of movement, with the suggestionof suppressed wildness beneath them , are al l there sti l l ,with more than their original bloom on them . But withevery possible abuse of the indulgence of which MissYohe can always count on more than her fair share, i ti s impossible to say t hat she removes the impression thatthe day for opéra-bouff e has gone by. Opéra-bouff e isdramatically and musically too trivial for modern tastein opera ; and in spectacle , variety, and novelty it cannotcompete with the string of music-hall turns disguised as

26

Dramat ic Opinions and Essays“musical comedy now in vogue . Besides, even our

modern music-hall songs and the orchestral “melodrameWhich accompanies our acrobats are symphonic in con

struct ion and Wagnerian in breadth and richness compared to the couplets and quadrilles Of Off enbach andLecocq ; although it i s true , al l the same, that Offenbach

’sscore of “La Grande Duchesse and its libretto are classics compared to anything w e seem able to turn out nowadays . Sti ll, if

“La Grande Duchesse” had been entrustedto a mere comic—song tune compiler and a brace o f facetious bar- loafers , it would have been none the more upto date now in dramatic weight and musical ri chness .Miss Yohe had better order a libretto from a witty dramatist and a score from a clever musician

,both in touch

with the humor o f the day , and try her luck with that.She wi l l only waste her time and money i f she tri es backto cast-o ff favorites .

By the way, this is musical criticism : why am I writingit ? Why do they not send my colleague J . F. R. to thesethings ? H ow stale it all seems ! how hopeless ! howheavily the stone Of Sisyphus goes up along this track inthe hot weather !

THE SECOND DATING OF SHERIDAN

The S chool for S candal. By Sheridan. LyceumTheatre, 20 June, 1896.

T IS impossible to see The School for Scandal without beginning to moralize . I am going to moral izelet the reader skip i f he wi ll .As the world goes on, manners , customs, and moralschange their aspect with revolutionary completeness

,

whilst man remains almost the same . Honor and decency, coats and shirts , cleanl iness and politeness, eatingand drinking

,may persist as names ; but the actual habits

which the names denote alter so much that no centuryWould tolerate those of its forerunner or successor. Compare the gentleman of Sheridan ’s time with the gentleman of to day . What a change in al l that is distinctively

gentlemanly l— the dress , the hair, the watch-chain, the

manners, the point Of honor, the meals , the ablutions ,and so on! Yet strip the twain , and they are as like astw o eggs : maroon them on Juan Fernandez

,and what

difference will there be between their habits and those OfRobinson Crusoe ? Nevertheless

,men do change, not

only in what they think and what they do , but in whatthey are . Sometimes they change

,j ust l ike their fash

ions , by the abol ition o f one sort and color of man andthe substitution o f another—w hite for black or yel lowfor red, white being the height o f fashion with us . Butthey also change by slow development o f the same kindo f man ; so that whilst the difference between the institutions o f the eighteenth and twentieth centuries may beas complete as the difference between a horse and a

28


bicycle,the diff erence betw een the men of those periods

is only a trifling increment of efl‘iciency, not nearly so

great as that which differentiated Shakespeare from theaverage El izabethan . That is why Shakespeare

’s plays ,though obsolete as representations o f fashion and manners

,are still far ahead Of the public as dramatic studies

o f humanity .

But I must cut my argument more finely than this .TO say that fashions change more rapidly than men isa very crude statement of extremes . Everything has itsown rate o f change . Fashions change more quickly thanmanners

,manners more quickly than morals , morals more

quickly than passions,and , in general , the conscious , rea

sonable, intellectual l i fe more quickly than the instinctive ,wil ful , affectionate one . The dramatist who deals withthe irony and humor o f the relatively durable sides of li fe ,or with their pity and terror , is the one whose comediesand tragedies wi l l last longest— sometimes so long as tolead a book-struck generation to dub him “Immortal ,

”

and proclaim him as “not for an age , but for all time .

Fashionable dramatists begin to “date,

” as the critics callit, in a few years : the accusation is ri fe at present againstthe earlier plays of Pinero and Grundy

,though it is due

to these gentlemen to observe that Shakespeare’s playsmust have “dated” far more when they were from twentyto a hundred years old than they have done since theworld gave up expecting them to mirror the passing hour .When “Caste” and “Diplomacy” were fresh

,

“LondonAssurance” had begun to date most horribly : nowadays“Caste” and “Diplomacy” date l ike the day-before -yesterday ’s tinned salmon ; whereas i f

“London Assurance”

were revived (and I beg that nothing Of the kind be attempted ) , there would be no more question of dating

29


about it than about the plays of Garrick or Tobin or Mrs .Centlivre .

But now Observe the consequences , as to this datingbusiness , of the fact that morals change more slowly thancostumes and manners , and instincts and passions thanmorals . It fol lows, does it not, that every

“immortal”

play will run the fol lowing course ? First,l ike “London

Assurance ,”its manners and fashions will begin to date .

I f its matter is deep enough to tide it over this danger,it wi l l come

.

into repute again,l ike the comedies of

Sheridan or Go ldsmith, as a modern classic . But aftersome time— some centuries , perhaps—it wi ll begin to dateagain in point of its ethical conception . Yet i f it dealsso powerfully with the instincts and passions of humanityas to survive this also, it wil l again regain its place , thistime as an antique classic, especially i f it tel ls a capitalstory. It is impossible now to read, without a curdl ingo f the blood and a bristl ing of the hair, the frightful butdramatical ly most powerful speech which David, on hisdeath-bed, del ivers to his son about the Old enemy whomhe had himself sworn to spare .

“Thou art a wise manand knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him ; but hishoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood.

”

Odysseus , proud o f outwitting all men at cheating andlying, and intensely rel ishing the blood Of Penelope ’ssuitors , is equally outside our moral ity . So is Punch .

But David and Ulysses,l ike Punch and Judy, will survive

for many a long day yet . Not until the change hasreached our instincts and passions wil l their stories beginto “date” again for the last time before their final Ohsolescence .

I have been led into this investigation of dating bythe fact that “The School for Scandal ,

” which has got

30


over its first attack of that complaint so triumphantly thatits obsolete costumes and manners positively heighten itsattraction, dated very perceptibly last Saturday night atthe Lyceum in point of morals . Its thesis o f the superiority Of the good-natured libertine to the ill-naturedformal ist and hypocrite may pass

, though it is only adramatization o f “Tom Jones

,

” and hardly demurs to theOld moral ity further than to demonstrate that a bad manis not so bad as a worse . But there is an ancient andfishlike smel l about the “villainy” of Joseph and the ladyl ikeness of Lady Teazle . I f you want to bring

“TheSchool for Scandal” up to date, you must make Charlesa woman, and Joseph a perfectly sincere moralist. Thenyou will be in the atmosphere of Ibsen and of

“TheGreatest of All These at once . And it is becausethere is no sort of hint o f this now familiar atmospherebecause Joseph ’s virtue is .a pretence instead o f a real ity,and because the women in the play are set apart and re

garded as absolutely outside the region o f free judgmentin which the men act, that the play, as aforesaid,

“dates .”

Formerly, nothing shocked us in the screen scene except Charles ’ caddishness in making fun Of Sir Peter andhis wife under very painful circumstances . But, after all ,Charles was not so bad as Hamlet rallying Ophel ia atthe play or Mercutio chaffing the Nurse. What now j arson us is the caddishness of Lady Teazle

,whose conduct

for the first time begins to strike us as it would if it werethe conduct of a man in the like circumstances . Societyforbids a man to compromise a woman ; but it also re

quires him , i f he nevertheless does compromise her, toaccept as one of the consequences Of h is action the Obligation not to betray her

,even i f he has to go into the w it

ness-box and swear to her innocence . Suppose Lady

3 I


Teazle, on being surprised by Sir Peter in Joseph’s rooms ,

had invented a plausible excuse, and had asked Josephto confirm her. Suppose Joseph had thereupon said

,

“NO,

it i s false, every word . My slumbering conscienceawakens ; and I return to the sacred path of truth andduty . Your wife, Sir Peter, i s an abandoned woman whocame here to tempt me from the path o f honor . But foryour arrival I might have fallen ; but now I see the blackness Of her conduct in al l its infamy ; and I ask you topardon me, and to accept the sincerity Of my contritionas a pledge for my future good conduct.” Would anyextremity of blackbal l ing, cutting, even kicking, be considered too severe for the man who should try to extricatehimsel f at the expense of his accomplice in that straightforward manner ? And yet that is exactly what LadyTeaz le does without the least misgiving on the part o f

the dramatist as to the entire approval and sympathy o f .

the audience . In this, as far as I am concerned, the dram

atist is mistaken,and the play consequently dates . I

cannot for the li fe of me see why it i s less dishonorablefor a woman to kiss and tell than a man . It is sometimes said that the social consequences Of exposure areworse for a woman than for a man ; but that i s certainlynot the case in these days of Parnell overthrows andruinous damages, whatever it may have been in the timeo f Sheridan—and the commonplace assumptions withregard to that period are probably as erroneous as thosecurrent about our own. At all events , when a marriedwoman comes to a man’s rooms with the deliberate intention of enjoying a little gallantry, and, on being caught,pleads for sympathy and forgiveness as an innocent youngcreature misled and seduced by a vil lain, she strikes a

blow at the very foundations Of immorality .

32


That the play is wel l acted goes without saying.

Sheridan wrote for the actor as Handel wrote for thesinger, setting him a combination of strokes which , however difficult some of them may be to execute finely, arefami l iar to all practised actors as the strokes which ex

perience has shown to be proper to the nature and capacity of the stage-player as a dramatic instrument . WithSheridan you are never in the pl ight o f the gentlemanwho stamped on a sheet of Beethoven’s music in a rage,declaring that what cannot be played Should not be written . That difli culty exists to-day with Ibsen, who aboundsin passages that our actors do not know how to play ;but “The School for Scandal is l ike “Acis and Galatea

you may have the voice and the skill for it or you maynot (probably not ) ; but at all events you are never indoubt as to how it ought to be done . To see Mr. Will iamFarren play Sir Peter after a long round o f modern“character acting” is l ike hearing Santley sing

“Nasce

al bosco” after a seasonful of goat-bleating Spanish tenorsand tremulous French baritones shattering themselves onpassionately sentimental dithyrambs by Massenet andSaint-Saens . Mr . Forbes Robertson is an excellentJoseph Surface . He gets

'

at the centre o f the part bycatching its heartlessness and insincerity, from which hisgood looks acquire a subtle ghastl iness , his grace a taintof artifice

,and all the pictorial qual ities which make him

so admirable as a saint or mediaeval hero an ironical playwhich has the most delicate hypocritical effect . Mr . FredTerry not only acts as Charles Surface, but acts well . Ido not expect this statement to be bel ieved in view o f

such prior achievements of his as “A Leader Of Men ,”

“The Home Secretary,” and so forth ; but I am bound

to report what I saw . Mr. Terry has grown softer

34


fatter,i f he wi ll excuse the remark ; and he has caught

some o f the ways o f Miss Julia Neilson, the total resultbeing to make his playing more eff eminate than it usedto be ; but it cannot be denied that he plays Charles Surface with a vivacity and a pleasant adipose grace that hasnothing o f the st ickishness o f his modern Bond Streetstyle about it . Mrs . Patrick Campbel l struck me as beingexactly right , for modern purposes , in her performance .

In the fourth act she w as Lady Teazle , and not an actressusing the screen scene as a platform for a powerful butmisplaced display o f intense emotional acting . No doubtan actress— if she is able to do it— is greatly tempted to

say to Joseph Surface I think we had better leave honorout o f the question” with al l the digni ty and depth ofImogen rebuking Iachimo, and to reveal hersel f, whenthe screen falls , as a woman of the richest nature tragically awakened for the first time to its full significance .

In ten years ’ time we shall have Mrs . Campbell doingthis as unscrupulously as Miss Rehan or any other pastmistress of her art does it now . But it is not the playit upsets the balance of the comedy and bel ittles Sir Peter .Nothing deeper is wanted than commonplace thoughtlessness , good-nature, and a girl

’s revulsion of feel ing atthe end ; and this Mrs . Patrick Campbell gives prettilyand without exaggeration, with the result that the comedyis seen in its true proportions for,

the first time with in thememory of thi s generation . It may be held, o f course,that the play has only been kept alive by overacting thatparticular scene ; but this view is not borne out by a general comparison of the effect o f the Daly and the Lyceumrevivals . On Miss Rose Leclercq, Mr . Cyri l Maude ,and Mr . Edward Rightonas Mrs. Candour

,Sir Benjamin

Backbite , and Sir Oliver, I need not waste compliments :

35


their success was a foregone conclusion . Maria washardly in Miss Brooke’s l ine ; but then Maria is not inanybody’s line . Mr . Forbes Robertson’s reception w as

extraordinari ly enthusiastic. It is evident that the fai lureo f

“Magda” and the escapade of“Michael” have not

shaken his popularity, whatever else it may have costhim . Towards Mrs . Campbell, however, there was a disposition to be comparatively sane and critical as wel l asvery friendly . I attribute this

,not to any improvement

in the publ ic brain, but to a make-up which , though eleverly in character with Lady Teazle

,hid all the magnetic

fascination Of Paula Tanqueray and Fedora .

THE SPACIOUS TIMES

Doctor Faustus . By Christopher Marlow e . Actedby members of the Shakespeare Reading Society atS t . George

’

s Hall, on a stage after the model o f theFortune Playhouse, 2 July, 1896.

R . WILLIAM POEL, in drawing up an announcement o f the last exploit o f the El izabethan StageSociety

,had no diffi culty in citing a number of

eminent authorities as to the superlative merits Of Christopher Marlowe . The dotage o f Charles Lamb on thesubject of the Elizabethan dramatists has found manyfi m itators, notably Mr . Swinburne, who expresses in versewhat he finds in books as passionately as a poet expresses

l“ whathe finds In l i fe . Among them , it appears, is a Mr .

G . B . Shaw ,in quoting whom Mr . Poel was supposed

by many persons to be quoting me . But though I sharethe gentleman

’s initials , I do not share his views . He

36


can admire a fool : I cannot, even when his folly notonly expresses itsel f in blank verse , but actual ly inventsthat art form for the purpose . I adm it that Marlowe

’

S1

blank verse has charm o f color and movem ent ; and I

know only too well how its romantic march caught thel iterary imagination and founded that barren and horribleworship of blank verse for its own sake which has since

desolated and laid waste the dramatic poetry o f England .

But the fellow was a fool for all that. He often remindsme

,in his abysmally inferior way, of Rossini . Rossini

had just the same tri ck of beginning with a magnificentlyimpressive exordium , apparently pregnant W ith the mosttragic developm ents , and presently lapsing into arranttrivial ity. But Rossini lapses amusingly ; writes

“Excusez du peu” at the double bar wh ich separates thesublime from the ridiculous ; and is gay , tuneful andclever in his frivolity . Marlowe , the moment the exhaustion o f the imginat ive fit deprIves h im Of the powero f raving, becomes childish in thought, vulgar andwooden Inhumor, and stupid Inhis attempts at invention .

He is the true Elizabethan blank-verse beast, itching tofrighten other people with the superstitious terrors andcruelties in which he does not himsel f believe , and w allowing in blood , violence , muscularity of express ion andstrenuous animal passion as only literary men do whenthey become thoroughly depraved by solitary work

, sed

entary cowardice , and starvation Of the sympatheticcentres . It is not surp ris ing to learn that Marlowe wasstabbed in a tavern brawl : what would be utterly un

believable would be his having succeeded in stabbing anyone else . Onpaper the whole Obscene crew o f these blankverse rhetoricians could outdare Luci fer himsel f : Naturecanproduce no murderer cruel enough for Webster, nor

37


any hero bully enough for Chapman, devout disciples ,both o f them, of Kit Marlowe . But you do not believein their martial ardor as you bel ieve in the valor of Sidneyor Cervantes . One calls the El izabethan dramatists imaginative , as one might say the same of a man in deliriumtremens ; but even that flatters them ; for whereas thedrinker can imagine rats and snakes and beetles whichhave some sort of resemblance '

to real ones, your typicalElizabethan heroes of the mighty line, having neither theeyes to see anyth ing real nor the brains to observe it,could no more conceive a natural or convincing Stagefigure than a blind man can conceive a rainbow or a deafone the sound o f an orchestra . Such success as they havehad is the success wh ich any fluent braggart and liarmay secure in a pothouse . Their swagger and fustian,and their scraps of Cicero and Aristotle, passed for poetryand learning in their own day because their publ ic wasPhilistine and ignorant. To-day, without having by anymeans lost th is advantage, they enjoy in addition thequaintness of their Obsolescence, and, above all , thesplendor of the light reflected on them from the reputation o f Shakespeare . Without that light they would nowbe as invisible as they are insufferable . In condemningthem indiscriminately, I am only doing what Time wouldhave done i f Shakespeare had not rescued them . I amquite aware that they did not get their reputations fornothing ; that there were degrees of badness among them ;that Greene was really amusing, Marston spirited andsilly-clever, Cyri l Tourneur able to string together lineso f which any couple picked out and quoted separatelymight pass as a fragment of a real organic poem, and so

on.

‘

Even the brutish pedant Jonson was not heartless,and could turn out pretti ly aff ectionate verses and fool

38


i sh ly afl'ectionate criticisms ; whilst the plausible firm of

Beaumont and Fletcher, humbugs as they were, couldproduce plays which were, all things considered, notworse than “The Lady of Lyons . But these dis tinctions

are no t worth making now . There is much variety ina dust-heap , even when the rag-picker is done with it ;but w e throw it indiscrimiminately into the

“destructor”

for all that . There is only one use left for the El izabethandramatists , and that is the purifim tion o f Shakespeare

'

s

reputation from its spurious elements . Just as you cancure people of talking patronizingly about “Mozartianmelody” by showing them that the tunes they imagine

to be his distinctive characteristi c were the commonplaceso f his time , so it is possible , perhaps , to cure people of

admiring, as distinctively characteristic o f Shakespeare,

the false,forced rhetoric, the cal lous sensation-mongering

in murder and lust, the ghosts and combats , and thevenal expenditure of all the treasures o f h is genius onthe bedizenment o f plays which are , as wholes , stupidtoys . When Sir Henry Irv ing presently revives “

Cym

bel ine at the Lyceum , the numerous descendants of thelearned Shakespearean enthusiast w ho went down on hisknees and kissed the Ireland forgeries wil l see no difference between the great dramati st w ho changed Imogenfrom a mere name in a story to a living woman , and the

manager-showman who exhibited her with the gory trunko f a newly beheaded man in her arms . But why shouldwe , the heirs o f so many greater ages , with the dramaticpoems o f Go ethe and Ibsen in our hands , and the musico f a great dynasty of musicians , from Bach to Wagner ,in our ears—why should w e waste our time on the rankand file of the Elizabethans , or encourage fool ish modernpersons to imitate them , or talk about Shakespeare as in

39


his moral platitudes , his j ingo claptraps , his tavern pleasantries, his bombast and drivel , and his incapacity forfol lowing up the scraps o f philosophy he stole so aptly

,

were as admirable as the mastery of poetic speech,the

feel ing for nature, and the knack of character-drawing,

fun , and heart wisdom which he was ready, l ike a trueson of the theatre , to prostitute to any subject, any oc

casion, and any theatrical employment ? The fact is , weare growing out of Shakespeare . Byron declined to putup with his reputation at the beginning o f the nineteenthcentury ; and now , at the beginning of the twentieth , heis nothing but a household pet . H is characters still l ive ;his word pictures Of woodland and wayside still give usa Bank-hol iday breath o f country air ; his verse stil lcharms us ; his subl imities still stir us ; the commonplacesand trumperies of the wisdom which age and experiencebring to al l Of us are stil l expressed by him better than byanybody else ; but we have nothing to hope from him andnothing to learn from him— not even how to write plays ,though he does that so much better than most moderndramatists . And i f this is true of Shakespeare

,what is

to be said o f Kit Marlowe ?Kit Marlowe , however , did not bore me at St . George

’sHall as he has always bored me when I have tried to readhim without skipping. The more I see o f these performances by the El izabethan Stage Society , the more Iam convinced that their method of presenting an Elizabethan play is not only the right method for that partieular sort o f play

,but that any play performed on a plat

form amidst the audience gets closer home to its hearersthan when it is presented as a picture framed by a pro

scenium . Also, that w e are less conscious of the artificiality Of the stage when a few wel l-understood conventions,

4o


Speare, rattled and rushed and spouted and clatteredthrough in the ordinary professional manner

,all but kills

the audience with tedium . For instance, Mephistophilis

was as j oyless and leaden as a devil need be—it was clearthat no stage-manager had ever exhorted him

,like a

lagging horse, to get the long speeches over as fast aspossible, Old chap—and yet he never for a moment boredus as Prince Hal and Poins bore us at the Haymarket .The actor who hurries reminds the spectators of the flighto f time

,which it is his business to make them forget .

Twenty years ago the symphonies o f Beethoven used tobe rushed through in London with the sole Obj ect Ofshortening the agony o f the audience . They were thenhighly unpopular . When Richter arrived he took theopposite point o f View, playing them so as to prolong thedel ight of the audience ; and Mottl dwells more lovinglyonWagner than Richter does on Beethoven . The resulti s that Beethoven and Wagner are now popular. Mr .Poel has proved that the same result will be attained assoon as blank-verse plays are produced under the controlo f managers who l ike them , instead of Openly and shamelessly treating them as infl ictions to be curtai led to theutmost . The representation at St. George ’s Hall wentwithout a hitch from beginning to end, a miracle of di ligent preparedness . Mr. Mannering, as Faustus , hadthe longest and the hardest task ; and he performed itconscientiously

,punctually

,and well . The others did no

less with what they had to do . The relief o f seeing actorscome on the stage with the simpl icity and abnegation ofchildren , instead of bounding on to an enthusiastic reception with the “Here I am again” expression of the popular favorites Of the ordinary stage, is hardly to be described. Our professional actors are now looked at by

42


the public from behind the scenes ; and they accept thatsituation and glory in it for the sake of the “personal

popIIlarity” i t involves . What a gigantic reform Mr .

Poel wil l make i f his Elizabethan Stage should lead tosuch a novelty as a theatre to which people go to see theplay instead of to see the cast !

DALY UNDAUNTED

The Countess Gncki : an entirely new comedy inthree acts, adapted from the original of Franz von

Schoenthanby August in Daly. Comedy Theatre , 11

July, 1896.

The Liar : a comedy in tw o acts, by Samuel Foote.

Royalty Theatre , 9 July, 1896. (A Revival . )The H onorable Member : a new three-act comedydrama by A. W. Gattie . Court Theatre, 14 July,1896.

MR. DALY ! Unfortunate Mr . Daly ! What aplay ! And we are actually assured that The

Countess Gucki” was received with delight inAmerica ! Wel l , perhaps it is true . After al l , it may verywell be that a nation plunged by its pol itical circumstancesinto the study of tracts on bi-metal l ism may have foundthis entirely new comedy” quite a page o f romance afterso many pages of the ratio between gold and silver . Butin London, at the end of a season of undistracted gaiety,it is about as interesting as a second-hand ball dress Ofthe last season but ten .

‘

When the curtain goes up, w eare in Carlsbad in 1819, talking gl ibly about Goethe andBeethoven for the sake Of local and temporal color. Two

43


young lovers , who provide what one may cal l the melancholy rel ief to Miss Rehan, enter upon a maddeninglytedious exposition of the relationship and movements ofa number of persons with long German titles . As noneo f these people have anything to do with the play assubsequently developed, the audience is perhaps expectedto discover, when the curtain falls , that the expositionwas a practical j oke at their expense, and to go homelaughing good-humoredly at their owndiscomfiture. ButI was far too broken-spirited for any such merriment .These wretched lovers are supposed to be a dull , timidcouple, too shy to come to the point ; and as the lucklessartists who impersonate them have no comic power, theypresent the pair with such conscientious seriousness thatreal ity itsel f could produce nothing more insufferablytiresome. At last Miss Rehan appears

,her entry being

worked up with music—O Mr . Daly, Mr. Daly, whenwill you learn the time o f day in London —in a hideousMadame de Stael costume which emphasizes the fact thatMiss Rehan, a woman in the prime of l i fe with a splendidphysique

,is so careless Of her bodily training that she

looks as Old as I do . She, too, talks about Goethe andBeethoven

,and

,having the merest chambermaid

’

s part,proceeds heartlessly to exhibit a selection of strokes andtouches broken off from the Old parts in which she has so

Often enchanted us . This rifl ing o f the cherished trophieso f her art to make a miserable bag o f tricks for a partand a play which the meekest leading lady in Londonwould rebel against

,was to me downright sacri lege : I

leave Miss Rehan to defend it i f she can . The play, suchas it is

,begins with the entry of a gigantic coxcomb w ho

lays siege to the ladies o f the household in a manner

meant by the dramatist to be engaging and interesting.

44


In real li fe a barmaid would rebuke his intolerable gallantries : on the stage Miss Rehan is supposed to be fas

cinated by them . Later on comes the one feeble morselof stale sentiment which saves the play from the summarydamnation it deserves . An old General , the coxcomb

’suncle

,loved the Countess Gucki when she was sixteen .

They meet again : the General stil l cherishes his old

romance : the lady is touched by his devotion . The dramatist thrusts this ready-made piece of pathos in yourface as artlessly as a vi llage boy thrusts a turnip-headedbogie ; but like the bogie , it has its eff ect on simple folk ;and Miss Rehan , with callous cleverness, turns on one Ofher best “Twelfth Night” effects

,and arrests the senti

mental moment with a power which , wasted on suchtrivial stuff

,is positively cynical and shocking. But this

oasis is soon left behind . The Old General , not havinga l ine that is worth speaking, looks solemn and kissesMiss Rehan’

s hand five or six times every minute ; thecoxcomb suddenly takes the part o f circus clown, and ,in pretended transports o f j ealousy, thrusts a map between the pair

,.

and shifts it up and down whi lst theydodge him by trying to see one another over or under it .But, well as we by this time know Mr . Daly

’s idea ofhigh comedy, I doubt i f I shal l be believed if I describethe play too closely . The whole affair

,as a comedy

presented at a West End house to a London audience bya manager “starring” a first-rate actress , ought to beincredible— ought to indicate that the manager is in hissecond childhood . But I suppose it only indicates thataudiences are in their first Childhood . I f i t pays , I haveno more to say.

Mr . Lewis and Mrs . Gi lbert, l ike Miss Rehan, are sti llfaithful to Mr . Daly, in spite of his wasting their talent

4s


on trash utterly unworthy of them . Remonstrance, Isuppose , is useless . At best it could only drive Mr . Dalyinto another o f his fricassees Of Shakespeare .Mr . Bourchier’s revival of “The Liar” produced aneffect out of al l proportion to the merits of the play bythe contrast between Foote ’s clever dialogue and the witlessness of our contemporary drama . The part of YoungWilding gives no trouble to a comedian o f Mr . Bourchier ’s address ; and Mr. Hendrie as Old Wilding wasequal to the occasion ; but the rest clowned in the mostgraceless amateur fashion . The very commonplaces ofdeportment are vanishing from the stage . The womencannot even make a curtsey : they sit down on their heelswith a flop and a smirk, and think that that is what Mr .Turveydrop

'

taught their grandmothers . Even Miss IreneVanbrugh is far too off -hand and easily sel f-satisfied.

Actors , it seems to me, will not be persuaded nowadaysto begin at the right end of their profession . Instead o f

acquiring the cultivated speech,gesture

,movement, and

personal ity which distinguish acting as a fine art fromacting in the ordinary sense in which everybody acts ,they dismiss i t as a mere word which signifies to be, todo, or to suff er, l ike Lindley Murray

’s verb,and proceed

to inflame their imaginations with romantic l iterature andgreen-room journalism unti l such time as their great opportunity will come . Off the stage, be it observed, peopleare now better trained physically than they ever werebefore , and therefore more impatient of exhibitions ofugl iness and clumsiness . Any good dancing-master couldtake half a dozen ordinary active young ladies and gentlemen, and in four lessons make them go through thewhole stage business of “The Liar” much more handsomely than the Royalty company . It is a great pity that

46


all actors and actresses are not presented at Court : itwould force them

,for once in their l ives at least, to study

the pageantry of their profession , instead o f idly nursingtheir ambitions

,and dreaming of “conceptions which

they could not execute i f they were put to the proof .“The Honorable Member

,

” produced at a matinée atthe Court last Tuesday

,i s a remarkable play ; not because

the author,Mr . Gattie

,i s either a great dramatic poet or

even,so far, a finished playwright ; but because he seems

conversant with ethical,social

,and political ideas which

have been fermenting for the last fifteen years in England and America, and which have considerably modifiedthe assumptions upon which writers of penny novelettesand fashionable dramas depend for popular sympathy .

The social j udgments pronounced in the play are un

mistakably those of reaction against unsocial commercialism and po l itica l party serv i ce , with here and there atouch of the cultured variety of anarchism . The hero isopenly impatient o f the scruples the heroine makes aboutgoing to live with him

,She being unfortunately married

to a felon .

“You say it is wrong,

” he says : “what youmean is that some person in a horsehair wig will Showthat it is against the law .

” When some one takes a highmoral tone against betting, he uses up the point made inMr . Wordsworth Donisthorpe

’

s essays,that a li fe in

surance is a pure bet made by the insurance company withthe person insured . A dramatist who has read Mr .

Donisthorpe comes as a refreshing surprise in a theatricalgeneration which pouts at Mr . Henry Arthur Jones

’

splays because their ideas are as modern as those of Puseyand Maurice , Ruskin and Dickens . I suggest, however,to Mr . Gattie that people ’s ideas

,however useful they

may be for embroidery,especially in passages o f comedy,

47


are not the true stuff of drama, which is always the naivefeeling underlying the ideas . As one who has had somewhat exceptional opportunities of Observing the worldin which these new ideas are current, I can testi fy thatthey afford no clue to the individual character of theperson holding them . A Socialist View of industrial questions , and an Individual ist View of certain moral questions , may strongly diff erentiate the rISIng publ ic man ofto-day from the rising public man of twenty-five yearsago, but not one rising publ ic man o f to-day from anotherrising public man o f to-day. I know a dozen men whotalk and think just as Mr . Gattie’s editor-hero talks andthinks ; but they differ from one another as widely asPistol differs from Hamlet ; The same thing is true Of

the Liberal-Capitalist persons who talk and think justthe other way : they differ as widely as Mr . Gladstonediffers from Mr . Jabez Balfour . I quite see that sincewe shall always have a dozen dramatists who can handleconventions for every one who can handle character, weare coming fast to a melodramatic formula in which thevillain shal l be a bad employer and the hero a Social ist ;but that formula is no truer to li fe than the o ld one inwhich the vi llain was a lawyer and the hero a Jack Tar .It is less than four years since the Independent Theatre ,then in desperate straits for a play o f native growth , extracted from my dust-heap o f forgotten MSS . a playcalled Widowers ’ Houses

,in which I brought on the

stage the slum landlord and domineering employer w hois

,in private l i fe

,a scrupulously respectable gentleman .

Also his bull ied,sweated rent-col lector . Take Widowers’

Houses” ; cut out the passages which convict the audience

o f being j ust as responsible for the Slums as the landlordis ; make the hero a ranting Socialist instead of a perfectly

48


dead silence in the first act of Widowers ’ Housesbrought down the house ; but it was bound to do so i fonly (a large

“i f,” I admit ) the actor had driven home

the preceding scene up to the hilt. But Beamer has toturn at the door and deliver what I take to be one o f themost dangerous exit speeches ever penned

,being nothing

less than “Curse you ! Curse you ! Damn you to hell !”

That speech is one of the author ’s mistakes ; but Mr .Welch pulled it through so successfully that his exit wasagain the hit of the piece . Surely it cannot take our

managers more than another twenty years—or,

say,

twenty-five—to real ize that the parts for Mr . Welch arestrong and real pathetic parts instead of silly clowningones .Here , then , we have the popular elements in Sartoriusand Lickcheese , with an angel heroine of the unjustlyaccused variety, and a hero who, if not aggressively aSocial ist

,is a high-toned young man o f the American

ethical sort, ready t o try the same experiment of l ivingdown prejudice that George Henry Lewes tried withGeorge El iot . The plot is very Old and simple—“LaGazza Ladra over again, except that it is Beamer insteado f a magpie who brings the heroine under suspicion ofStealing the fami ly diamonds . The audience swal lowedal l the heterodox sentiments as i f they were the platitudeso f an archbishop . The play might be l ightened andsmartened considerably by the excision of a number o fbits and scraps which

,good enough for conversation, are

not good enough for drama . Miss Madge McIntosh

played the heroine so naturally that She was neither morenor less interesting than if the play had been real . Thisis more than I could say for all actresses ; but I do notmean it as a compliment for al l that. Unless an actress

50


can be at least ten times as interesting as a real lady,

w hy should she leave the drawing- room and go on thestage ? Mr . Graham Brown ’s impersonation of the plainclothes po l iceman was a clever bit of mimicry . The otherparts were in familiar hands—those o f Mr . Anson

,Mrs .

Edmund Phelps, Mr. Bernage, and Mr . Scott Buist.

BLAMING THE BARD

Cymbeline. By Shakespeare. Lyceum Theatre, 22

September, 1896.

CONFESS to a difficulty in feeling civil ized just atpresent . Flying from the country , where the gentlemen o f England are in an ecstasy o f chicken

butchering, I return to town to find the higher wits assembled at a play three hundred years old, in which the

sensation scene exhibits a woman waking up to find herhusband reposing gorily in her arms with his head cutOff .

Pray understand , therefore , that I do not defendCymbeline .

” It is for the most part stagey trash of the

lowest melodramatic order, in parts abominably written ,throughout intellectual ly vulgar , and , j udged in po int ofthought by modern intellectual standards , vulgar , fool i sh ,Offensive, indecent, and exasperating beyond al l tolerance .

There are moments when one asks despairingly why our“1

stage should ever have been cursed with this “immortal”

pi l ferer o f other men’s stories and ideas , with his monstrous rhetorical fustian, his unbearable platitudes , his

SI


pretentious reduction Of the subtlest problems of l i fe tocommonplaces against which a Polytechnic debating clubwould revolt, his incredible unsuggestiveness , his sententious combination of ready reflection with complete intellectual steril ity, and his consequent incapacity for gettingout of the depth o f even the most ignorant audience

,ex

cept when he solemnly says something so transcendentlyplatitudinous that his more humble-minded hearers cannot bring themselves to bel ieve that so great a man reallymeant to talk l ike their grandmothers . With the singleexception of

“Homer, there is no eminent writer, not evenSir Walter Scott

,whom I can despise so entirely as I

despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind againsthis . The intensity of my impatience with him occasionallyreaches such a pitch, that it would positively be a rel iefto me to dig him up and throw stones at him , knowingas I do how incapable he and his worshippers are o f

understanding any less Obvious form o f indignity . Toread “Cymbeline” and to think of Goethe , of Wagner, o fIbsen, is , for me, to imperi l the habit Of studied moderation o f statement which years o f publ ic responsibility asa journal ist have made almost second nature in me .

But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannotenjoy Shakespeare . He has outlasted thousands Of ablerthinkers

,and will outlast a thousand more . His gift of

tell ing a story (provided some one else told it to himfirst ) his enormous power over language , as conspicuousin his senseless and si lly abuse o f i t as in his miracleso f expression ; h is humor ; his sense o f idiosyncratic character and his prodigious fund o f that vital energy whichis

,i t seems

,the true differentiating property behind the

faculties,good

,bad

, or indifferent, of the man o f genius ,enable him to entertain us so effectively that the im

52

Dramat ic Opinions and , Essays

aginary scenes and people he has created become morereal to us than our actual l i fe—at least, until our knowledge

’

and grip o f actual li fe begins to deepen and glowbeyond the common . When I was twenty I knew everybody in Shakespeare, from Hamlet to Abhorson , muchmore intimately than I knew my l iving contemporaries ;and to this day, i f the name of Pistol or Polonius catchesmy eye in a newspaper , I turn to the passage with morecuriosity than if the name were that Of— but perhaps Ihad better not -mention any one in particular.

v)H ow many new acquaintances , then , do you make inreading “Cymbeline ,

” provided you have the patience tobreak your way into it through all the fustian , and areOld ' enough to be free from the modern idea that Gymbeline must be the name of a co smetic and Imogen ofthe ' lates t

-

scientific discovery in the nature of a hithertounknown gas ? Cymbe l ine is noth ing ; his queen nothing,though some attempt is made to justi fy her descriptionas

“a woman that -bears all down with her brain” ; Posthumus , nothing-j—most

-fortunately, as otherw ise he wouldbe an unendurably contemptible hound ; Belarius, noth ing—at least, not after Kent in

“King Lear” ( j ust as theQueen is noth ing after Lady Macbeth ) ; Iachimo, notmuch— only a diabolus ex machinamade plausible ; andPisanio , less than Iachimo . On the other hand , w e haveCloten, the prince o f numbskulls , whose part , indecenciesand all , i s a l iterary masterpiece from the first l ine to thelast ; the tw o princes— fine presentments o f that impressive and generous myth , the noble savage ; CaiusLucius , the Roman general , urbane among the barbarians ;and , above all , Imogen . But do , please, remember thatthere are two Imogens . One is a solemn and elaborate

example of what, in Shakespeare’s Opinion

,a real lady

53


ought to be . With th is unspeakable person virtuous ihdignation is chronic . Her Object in li fe is to vindicate herown propriety and to suspect everybody else ’s

,especially

her husband’s . Like Lothaw in the j ewel ler ’s shop inBret Harte’s burlesque novel , She cannot be left alonewith unconsidered triflcs of

lportable silver without ofli

ciously assuring the proprietors that she has stolennaught, nor would not, though she had found goldstrewed i ’ the floor . Her fertility and spontaneity innasty ideas is not to be described : there is hardly a speechin her part that you can read without wincing. But thisImogen has another one tied to her with ropes of blankverse (which can fortunately be cut) —the Imogen ofShakespeare ’s genius , an enchanting person of the mostdelicate sensitiveness , ful l of sudden transitions fromecstasies of tenderness to transports of childish rage , andreckless of consequences in both , instantly hurt and instantly appeased, and of the highest breeding and courage .

But for this Imogen,“Cymbel ine” would stand about as

much chance o f being revived now as “Titus Andronicus .”

The instinctive Imogen, like the real l ive part of therest of the play

,has to be disentangled from a mass of

stuff which,though it might be recited with eff ect and

appropriateness by young amateurs at a performance bythe El izabethan Stage Society

,Is absolutely unactable and

unutterable in the modern theatre,where a direct i llusion

o f real ity is aimed at, and where the repugnance of thebest actors to play false passages is practical ly insuperable . For the purposes o f the Lyceum , therefore ,

“Gym

bel ine” had to be cut, and cut l iberal ly . Not that therewas any reason to apprehend that the manager wouldfl inch from the Operation : quite the contrary . In a trueri‘epublic of art Sir Henry Irving would ere th is have ex

54

Dramat ic Opinions andE ssays

piated his acting versions on the s caffold . He does notmerely cut plays : he disembowels them . In “

Cymbeline’

LJhe has quite surpassed himsel f by extirpating the antiphonal third verse o f the famous dirge . A man w ho

would do that would do anything— cut the coda out Of

the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, orshorten one -

Of V elasquez’

s Phil ips into a kitcat to makeit fit over his drawing-room mantelpiece . The grotesquecharacter tracery Of Cloten’

s l ines, which is surely notbeyond the appreciation Of an age educated by Steven

son, is defaced with Cromwell ian ruthl essness ; and thepatriotic scene , with the Queen

’s great speech about thenatural bravery of our isle, magnificent in its Walkiiren

ritt swing, is shorn away, though it might eas ily havebeen introduced in the Garden scene . And yet

,long

screeds o f rubbish about “s lander, whose edge is sharperthan the sword,

” and so on, are preserved with superstitious veneration .

This curious want of connoisseurship in l iteraturewould disable Sir Henry Irv ing seriously i f he were aninterpretative actor . But it is, happily, the fault o f a

great quality— the creative quality . A prodigious deal of”!

nonsense has been written about Sir Henry I rving’s conception Of this, that, and the other Shakespearean character . The truth is that he has never in his l i fe conceivedor interpreted the characters Of any author except himsel f. He is real ly as incapable Of acting another man ’splay as Wagner was of setting another man ’s l ibretto ;and he should, l ike Wagner, have written his plays forhimsel f. But as he did not find himsel f out unti l i t wastoo late for him to learn that supplementary trade

,he

was compelled to use other men’s plays as the framework 1for hi s own creations . His first great success in this sort

55


Of adaptation was with the Merchant of Venice . Therewas no question then of a bad Shylock or a good Shylock :

he was simply not Shylock at all ; and l when his OWII

creation came into conflict with Shakespeare’s,as it did

quite ' Openly in “

the Trial scene, he simply played in flatcontradiction o f the lines, and positively acted Shakespeare off ‘the stage . This was an original pol icy

,and an

intensely interesting one‘

from the critical point o f View ;but it was Obvious that its difficulty must increase withthe vividness and force of the dramatist’s creation .

Shakesp eare at his highest pitch cannot be set aside byany mOrtal actor, how ever

'

gifted; and when Sir HenryIrving

‘ tried to interpolate a most singulanand fantasticnotion o f an old man between the l ines of a fearful lymutilated

’

acting version of“King Lear,

” he was smashed.

On the other fhan‘

d, in'

plays by persons of no importance ,where th

'

e'

dramatist’

s p art of the business is the meresttrash, his creative activity is unhampered

‘ and uncontra

dicte'

d ; and the author’s futi l ity is the ‘

opportunity for theactor’s masterpiece; Now ‘I have already described Shakespeare ’s Iachimo as little better than any of the lay figuresin “Cymbel ine” -a mere diabolus er machina. ButIrving’s Iachimo is a very different affair . It is a newand independent creation . I knew Shakespeare ’s playinside and out before last Tuesday ; but this Iachimo wasquite fresh and novel tO ‘

me . I witnessed it with nuqual ified delight : it was‘ no vulgar bagful of points ,

” buta true impersonation

,unbroken in its li fe-current from

end to end, varied ou' the surface with the finest comedy,

and without a single lapse in the sustained beauty Of itsexecution . It is only after such work that an artist canwith perfect naturalness and dignity address himsel f tohis audience as “their faithful and loving servant” ; and

56

o Dramatic Opinions and Essays

Shakespeare, takes al l the ballast out o f the fourth act,

and combines with the inappropriate prettiness and sunh iness of the landscape scenery to most cruelly handicapMiss Ellen Terry in the crucial scene of her awakeningby the side Of the flower-decked corpse—a scene which,without every accessory to heighten its mystery

,terror

,

and pathos , i s utterly and heart-breakingly impossible forany actress , even if she were Duse, Ristori , Mrs . Siddons,and Miss Terry rolled into one . When I saw this grossand palpable oversight, and heard people talking aboutthe Lyceum stage management as superb

,I with difficulty

restrained myself from tearing out my hair in handfulsand scattering it with imprecations to the four winds .That cave o f the three mountaineers wants nothing buta trel l ised porch, a bamboo bicycle, and a nice l ittle bedo f standard roses , to complete its absurdity .

With Mr . Frederic Robinson as Belarius, and Mr .Tyars as Pisanio , there is no reasonable fault to find , except that they might, perhaps , be a little brighter withadvantage ; and o f the rest o f their male col leagues I thinkI shal l ask to be al lowed to say nothing at all , even atthe cost of omitting a tribute to Mr . Fuller Mellish

’

s dis

crect impersonation of the harmless necessary Philario .

There remains Miss Genevieve Ward, whose part, withthe “Neptune ’s park” speech Iopped Off , was not worthher playing, and Miss Ellen Terry, who invariably fascinates me so much that I have not the smallest confidencein my own judgment respecting her . There was no Bedford Park about the effect she made as she stepped intothe King’s garden ; sti l l less any o f the atmosphere Of

ancient Britain . At the first glance, we were in the Ital ianfifteenth century ; and the house, unversed in the cinquecento

,but dazz led al l the same, proceeded to roar unti l

58


i t stopped from exhaustion. There i s one scene in“Cymbel ine, the one in which Imogen receives the summons to “that same blessed Milford ,

”wh ich might have

been written for Miss Terry, so perfectly does its innocent rapture and frank gladness fit into her hand . Herrepulse of Iachimo brought down the house as a matterof course, though I am convinced that the Older Shak espeareans present had a vague impression that it cou ldnot be properly done except by a stout, turnip-headedmatron , with her black hair folded smoothly Over herears

’

and secured in a classic bun . Miss Terry had cv

idently cut her own part ; at all events the odious Mrs .Grundyish Imogen had been dissected out o f it so ski l ~ful ly that it went without a S ingle jar. The ci rcumstancesunder which she was asked to play the fourth act were ,as I have explained, impossible. To wake up in t he

gloom amid the wolf and robber-haunted mountain

gorges which formed the Welsh mountains Of Shake ~Speare

’s imagination in the days before the Great Westernexisted is one th ing : to wake up at about three on a niceBank-holiday afternoon ina charming spot near the val leyo f the Wye is quite another . With al l her force , MissTerry gave us faithfully the whole process which Shakespeare has presented with such dramatic cunning

Imogen’

s bewilderment, between dream and waking, asto where she i s ; the vague discerning Of some strangebedfellow there ; the wondering examination of theflowers with which he is so oddly covered ; the frightfuldiscovery of bloodon the flowers , with the h ideous cl imaxthat the man is headless and that his clothes are her husband’s ; and it was al l ruined by that blazing, idiotic,prosaic sunl ight in which everything leapt to the eye atOnce, rendering the mystery and the slow ly growing clear

9


ness of perception incredible and unintelligible,and spoil

ing a scene which, properly stage-managed, would havebeen a triumph of histrionic intel l igence . Cannot somebody be hanged for this —men perish every week forlesser crimes . What consolation is it to me that MissTerry, playing with infinite charm and delicacy of appeal ,made up her lost ground in other directions

,and had

more than as much success as the roaring gallery couldfeel the want of ?

MORRIS AS ACTOR AND DRAMATIST

I O October, 1896.

MONG the many articles which have been writtenabout Wil l iam Morris during the past week, Ihave seen none which deal with him as dramatist

and actor. Yet I have been present at a play by Wi ll iamMorris ; and I have seen him act, and act, too, much better than an average professional of the twenty-pound aweek class . I need therefore make no apology for makinghim the subj ect o f an article on the theatre.Morris was a quite unaff ected and accessible person .

Al l and sundry were welcome to know him to the ful lextent of their capacity for such acquaintance (whichwas usually not saying much ) as far as a busy and sen

sitive man could make himsel f common property withoutintolerable boredom and waste o f time . Even to thePress

,which was general ly—bless its innocence —e ither

ignorantly insolent to him or fatuously patronizing, as i fhe were some delightful curio, appreciable only by per

60


sons of taste and fancy, he w as will ing to be helpfu l .Journal ist though I am ,

\

he put up with me with thefr iendliest patience, though I am afraid I must sometimeshave been a fearful trial to him .

I need hardly say that I have often talked copiously tohim on many of his favorite subj ects , especial ly the artist ic subj ects . What is more to the point, he has oc

easionally talked to me about them . No art was indif

ferent to h im . He declared that nobody could pass apicture without looking at it—that even a smoky cracked

Old mezzotint in a pawnbroker’s window would stop youfor at least a moment. Some idiot, I notice, takes i t on

himsel f to assure the world that he had no musical sense .As a matter of fact, he had a perfect car, a most musicalsinging voice, and so fine a sense of beauty in sound (as

in everyth ing else ) that he could not endure the clatterof the pianoforte or the squal ling and shouting o f the

average singer. When I told h im that the Amsterdamchoir, brought over here by M . de Lange, had discoveredthe secret of the beauty of mediaeval music, and sang itwith surpassing excellence, he was full o f regret for having missed it ; and the viol concerts o f M . Dolmetschpleased him greatly. Indeed once, during his illness ,when M . Dolmetsch played him some really beauti fulmusic ona really beauti ful instrument, he was quite overcome by it. I once urged him to revive the manufactureof musical instruments and rescue us from the vulgarhandsomeness of the trade articles with which our or

chestras are equipped ; and he was by no means averseto the idea , having always , he avowed, thought he shouldl ike to make a good fiddle. Only neither in music norin anything else could you engage him in any sort of

intellectual dilettantism : he would not waste his time and

61


energy on the curiosities and fash ions of art, but wentstraight to its h ighest point in the direct and simpleproduction of beauty. H e was ultra’modern— not merelyup to date, but far ahead of i t his wall papers , his hangings , his tapestries , and his printed books have the twent ieth century in every touch of them ; whi lst as to hisprose word-weaving, our worn—out nineteenth-centuryMacaulayese i s rancid by comparison . He started fromthe thirteenth century simply because he wished to startfrom the most advanced point instead o f from the mostbackward one— say 1850 or thereabout. When peoplecalled him “archaic,

”he explained, with the ~ indulgence

o f perfect knowledge, that they were fools , only they didnot know it. In short, the man was a complete artist,who became great by a pre—eminent sense of beauty, andpractical abil ity enough (and to spare ) to give effect to it.And yet—and yet- and yet I am sorry to have to

say it ; but I never could induce him to take the smallestinterest in the contemporary theatrical routine of theS trand . As far as I am aware , I share with Mr . HenryArthur Jones the distinction o f being the only moderndramatist whose plays were witnessed by him ( exceptCharley’s Aunt, which bored him ) and I greatly fearthat neither o f us dare claim his visits as a spontaneousact of homage to modern acting and the modern drama.Now , when Morris would not take an interest in any

thing, and would not talk about it—and his capacity forthis sort o f resistance , both passive and active, was re

markably obstinate—i t generally meant that he had madeup his mind , on good grounds , that it was not worthtalking about. A man ’s mouth may be shut and hismind closed much more effectual ly by his knowing al labout a subject than by his knowing nothing about it ;

62


and whenever Morris suddenly developed a downrightmulishness about anything, it was a sure sign that heknew it through and through and had quarrelled withit . Thus, when an enthusiast for some fashionable movement or reaction in art would force it into the conversation

,he would often behave so as to convey an impression

o f invincible prej udice and intolerant ignorance , and so

get rid o f it . But later on he would let slip somethingthat showed, in a flash, that he had taken in the wholemovement at its very first demonstration, and had neither

prej udices nor illusions about it . When you knew thesubj ect yourself, and could see beyond it and around it,putting it in its proper place and accepting its limits , he

would talk fast enough about it ; but it did not amusehim to allow novices to break a lance with him ,

because

he had no special facility for brilliant critical demonstration, and required too much patience for his work towaste any of i t on idle discussions . Consequently therewas a certain intellectual roguery about h im o f which hisintimate friends were very well aware ; so that if a sub

j cet was thrust on h im, the aggressor was sure to beridiculously taken in i f he did not calculate on Morris ’sknowing much more about it than he pretended to.

On the subject of the theatre, an enthusiastic youngfirst-nighter would probably have given Morris up , afterthe first attempt to gather his Opinion of “The SecondMrs . Tanqueray, as an ordinary citizen who had never

formed the habit of playgoing, and neither knew nor

cared anything about the theatre except as a treat forchi ldren once a year during the pantomime season . ButMorris would have written for the stage i f there hadbeen any stage that a poet and artist could write for.

When the Socialist League once proposed to raise the

. 63


wind by a dramatic entertainment, and suggested thathe should provide the play, he set to at once and providedit . And what kind of play w as it ? vWas it a miracle playon the l ines o f those scenes in the Towneley mysteriesbetween the “shepherds abiding In the field

,which he

used to quote with great relish as his idea Of a good bito f comedy ? Not at al l : it was a topical extravaganza ,entitled “

Nupkins Awakened,” the chief “character parts”

being Sir Peter Edl in,Tennyson

,and ~an imaginary Arch

bishop o f Canterbury . Sir Peter owed the compl imentto his activity at that time in sending Social ists to prisonon charges o f Obstruction

,

” which was always provedby getting a pol iceman to swear that i f any passer-by or

vehicle had wished to pass over the particular spot in athoroughfare on which the speaker or his audience happened to be standing

;their presence would have ob

structed him . This contention,which was regarded as

quite sensible and unanswerable by the newspapers of theday, was put into a nutshell in t he course of Sir Peter

’ssumming-up in the .play .

“In fact, gentlemen, i t i s a matter o f grave doubt whether we are not all of us cont inually committing this Offence from our cradles to our

graves .” This speech,which the real Sir Peter o f course

never made,though he certainly would have done so had

he had wit enough to see the absurdity o f solemnly sending a man to prison for tw o months because another mancould not walk through him—especial ly when it wou ldhave been so easy to lock him up for three on some respectable pretext—will probably. keep Sir Peter ’s memorygreen when al l his actual j udicial utterances are forgotten . .As to Tennyson , Morris took a Social ist who happened to combine the right sort of beard with a melancholy temperament, and dri l led him in a certain portent

64


done it had there been any practical occasion for it,or

any means Of consummating° i t by stage representationunder proper conditions without spending more time onthe j ob than it was worth . Later, at one of the annualfestivities Of the Hammersmith Social ist Society

,he

played the Old gentleman in the bath-chair in a shortpiece called “The Duchess of Bayswater” (not by himself) , which once served its turn at the Haymarket as acurtain raiser . It was Impossible for such a born tel lerand devourer of stories as he was to be indifferent to anart which is nothing more than the most vivid and realo f all ways of story-tel ling. NO man would more willingly have seen his figures move and heard their Voicesthan he .Why, then, did he so seldom go to the theatre ? Well,come , gentle reader, why doesn

’t anybody go to thetheatre ? DO you suppose that even I would go to thetheatre twice a year except on business ? You wouldnever dream of asking why Morris did not read pennynovelettes

,or hang his rooms with Christmas-number

chromol ithographs . We have no theatre for men l ikeMorris : indeed, we have no theatre for quite ordinarycultivated people . I am a person of fairly catholic interests : it i s my ,privilege to enjoy the acquaintance of afew representative people in various vortices of culture .I know some o f the most active-minded and intell igent o fthe workers in social and pol itical reform . They readstories with an avidity that amazes me ; but they don

’tgo to the theatre . I know the people who are struggl ingfor the regeneration o f the arts and crafts . They don’tgo to the theatre . I know people who amuse their leisurewith edition after edition of the novels of Mrs . HumphryWard, Madame Sarah Grand , and Mr . Harold Frederic,

66


and who could not for their lives struggle through tw ochapters of Miss Corel l i , Mr . Rider Haggard, or Mr . Hal lCaine. They don’t go to the theatre . I know the lovers

of mus1c w ho support the Richter and Mottl concerts and

go to Bayreuth i f they can afford it. They don’t go tothe theatre . I know the stafi of t his paper . It doesn’tgo to the theatre—even the musical critic is an incorrigibleShirk when his duties involve a visit thither . Nobodygoes to the theatre except the people w ho also go toMadame Tussaud’s . Nobody writes for it, unless he ishopelessly stage struck and cannot help h imsel f. It hasno share in the leadership of thought : i t does not evenreflect its current . It does not create beauty : i t apes

fashion . It does not produce personal skil l : our actorsand actresses, with the exception of a few persons withnatural gi fts and graces, mostly miscultivated or hal fcultivated

,are simply the middle-class section of the

residuum . The curt insult with which Matthew Arnolddismissed it from consideration found it and left it utterlydefenceless . And yet you ask m ; why Morri s did notgo to the theatre . In the name of common sense, whyshould he have gone ?When I say these things to stupid people , they havea feeble way o f retorting,

“What about the Lyceum ? ”

That is just the question I have been asking for years ;and the reply always is that the Lyceum is occupied exclusively with the works o f a sixteenth-seventeenth century author, in whose social views no educated and capable

person to-day has the faintest interest, and whose art i spartly so v illainously artificial and foo lish as to produceno effect on a thirteenth-twentieth century artist likeMorris except one of impatience and discom fort , andpartly so fine as to defy satis factory treatment at a the

67


atre where there are only two c ompetent performers, whoare neither o f them in their proper element in the seventeenth century . Morris was wil l ing, to : go to a streetcorner and ‘tel l the people something t hat -they very badlyneeded to be told, even when he'could depend on beingarrested by a pol iceman for 'bis trouble ; but he

'

drew thel ine at 'fashionably

'moderniz ed Shakespeare . I f you hadtold him what a pretty

'fifteenth-century picture MissTerry makes in‘her 'flow er '

w reath ' in Cymbeline ’s garden,

you'

m ight have induced him to peep for a moment atthat ; but

'

the first blast of the queen’s rhetoric wouldhave

‘

sent him flying into the fresh air again . You couldnot -persuade 'Morris that he was being amused when hew as, as a matter of

‘ fact, being'bored and‘

you could notpersuade him that music'w as harmonious by

' playing iton

'

vulgar instruments‘

, or'that verse was verse w hen'

ut

tered by people w ith '

either nO'

delivery at all or the del ivery of 'an'

auct ioneer or toastmaster . In short, youcould not induce him:

tO'

accept ugl iness -

a s art , no matterhow brilliant, how- fashionable , how sentimental , or howintellectually

'interesting you‘

m ight‘make it . And you

certainly could not palm off a mess Of ‘Tappert itian sentiment daubed over ‘

some'sham love'affai r onhim as a goodstory . This ; alas

'

! is as much -as tO ‘

say that you couldnot induce him to spend his evenings at a modern theatre .And yet he was not in the least an ‘ Impossibil ist : he revclled in Dickens and the elder Dumas ; he “ was enthu

siastic about '

the acting'

o f Robson , and'

greatly admiredJefferson ; i f he had started a Kelmscott Theatre insteadof the Kelmscott Press

,I am quite confident that in a

few months , without going hal f a mile afield for his company

,he would have produced work that would within

ten years have affected every theatre in Europe , from

68


London to St . Petersburg, and from New York to Alexandria ; At all events , I should be glad to hear any gentleman point out an instance i incw h ich he undertook tofind the way, and did not make us come along with him .

We kicked and screamed , i t i s true : some of our poorobituarists kicked and screamed— even brayed— at hisfuneral the other day ; but we have had to come along .

NO man was more liberal in his attempts to improve Mor

ris ’s mind than I was ; but I always found that, in so faras I was not making a most horrible idiot of myse l f outof misknowledge ( I could forgive mysel f for pure ignorance ) , he could afford to listen to me with the patienceof a man who had taught my teachers . Th ere werepeople whom we tried to run him downwith—Tennysons ,Swinburnes

,and so on; but thei r opinions about th ings

did not makeany difference . Morris’

s did.

THE RED ROBE

Under the Red Robe: a romantic play in four acts,adapted by (

Edward Rose from the novel by StanleyWeyman. H aymarket Theatre, October 17, 1896.

F THE people who delight in the romances Of Mr .Stanley Weyman and the detective stories of Mr.Conan Doyle belonged to the same social stratum as

those w ho formerly read Les Trois Mousquetaires” and“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,

” I should concludethat we were in a period o f precipitous degeneration . I

was brought up, romantically speaking, on D’

Artagnan

and Bussy d’Amboise ; and I cannot say that I find Gilde Berault in any way up to their standard ; whilst thedescent from that ingenious automaton, Detective Dupin,to such a prince of duff ers and dul lards as SherlockHolmes is one which , after a couple of attempts , I have

given up as impossible . I therefore approach “Underthe Red Robe” ful l of prejudice against it. The veryname appears to me a fatuity : it suggests a companionpiece to “The White Silk Dress .On the other hand, it Is Impossible to feel il l-disposedtowards the new Haymarket enterprise. Mr . Harrison ’smanagement at the Lyceum was exceptionally brilliant,even among first-class managements . Mr. Cyril Maudeand Miss Winifred Emery are among the most solidlypopular of those happy couples w ho , by giving the sanction Of an irreproachable domesticity to the wickedest ofthe arts , hallow the dissipations of the respectable London

playgoer . Besides, I , as critic-dramatist, notoriously

O


have a corrupt personal motive for doing all I can toenhance the prestige o f the Maude-Harrison combination,and making success a matter o f course at the Haymarket.

Onthe whole, I think my prej udice is suffi ciently balancedby my prepossession to allow me to proceed to theslaughter with a plausible pretence of Openmindedness .I began by reading the book—a better po l icy on thewhole than the alternative one o f making a merit o f being

in the dark about it. I thought it puerile to the uttermostpublishable extreme o f jejuniority. It is no t without a

painful effort that I can bring myself to confess even nowthat when I was fourteen, some o f the romances I wovefor myself may have presented me in the character o f adark-souled villain with a gorgeous female passionatelydenouncing me as Spy !

” “Traitor !” “Vil lain !” and thenremorsefully worshipping me for some act of transcendent magnanimity onmy part . But when I was fourteenboys had to keep these audacious imaginings to themselves onpain Of intolerable ridicule . Since then the NewPubl ic has been manufactured under the Education Act ;and nowadays there is a fortune for the literary boy of

fourteen, or even the literary adult who can remembervividly what a fool he was at that age .

I do not know how Old Mr. Stanley Weyman is , butI can certify most po sitively that his Gil de Berault andRenée de Cocheforét are noth ing but the dark-souled villain-hero and the gorgeous female aforesaid

,and that

the old situation between them has accumulated nothinground it but a few commonplace duels and adventures ,with a very feeble composite p hotograph of the Richelieuso f Dumas and Lytton , and a bold annexation Of theLyt tonian incident of the Cardinal pretending to send thehero to execution whi lst real ly sending him to the armsof his lady love.

1]


Mr. Edward Rose, in dramatizing such a novel, had todramatize situation without character—that is

,to make

bricks without straw ; Worse than that, he had to dramatiz e a situation the boyishness of which must become soflagrantly

'

obvious to the wise under the - searching glareof the footlights, that his only hope of acceptance lay inthe as yet unfathomed abysses o f the l iterary infancy ofthe New Publ ic . Whether that public wi ll support himis exactly what we are all wondering at present . As forme, I am getting on in l ife ; I used to make my bread bymy wit, and now

-have to make it by my reputation forwit ; and I simply cannot afford to pretend that

“Underthe Red Robe” as a ~

play has any charm for me . As anovel, I can pass my idle hour with it, j ust as Bismarckused to pass his with the pol ice novels o f Du Bo isgobeyfor, after all , Mr . Stanley

'Weyman i s a bit of a storytel ler— is, indeed, a rather concise and forcible narrator ;and his books ‘serve when the newspaper becomes nuendurable . But as a play, involving the effort of makingup one ’s mind to go to the theatre , booking one

’s seat,going. out at night, and so on— no, thank you . At least,not unless the adapter and the performers

'

create someattraction not to be 'found in the book .

I must sorrowfully add that, for me at least, that attraction is not forthcoming ; and I can only hOpe thatthe villain-hero and the gorgeous female may pull theplay through and cover my disparagements with shame .Even i f I accept the romance on its own ground , I havestill to complain that the conventions of the theatre prevent Mr. Rose from faithful ly carrying out the concep

tion of the villain-hero . In the first chapter of the novelthere is no mistake about the darkness of Gil de Berault ’ssoul . H e

-rooks an English lad by watching his cards in

72


for miles round the country,and then lying low for him

round a corner . The Haymarket stage not being largeenough for a paperchase, Mr . Rose has been driven tomake Renée have Gi l locked into his bedroom on the topfloor, and then catch him emerging deceitfully from thechimney (Mr . Waring cal ls it a secret passage ; but theoriginal conception is too obvious ) on the ground-floor .

Furthermore,Gil

,instead o f accidentally

,

finding the

diamonds in the street,breaks open the knife-drawer in

the sideboard with his dagger,and steals them from that

el igible hiding-place, declaring that“he never betrays the

hand that pays him,

” a piece Of morality—borrowed fromthe bravo in “Le Roi s’amuse”—which plunges the audience into deeper bewilderment every time Mr . Waringreiterates it. When at last the gorgeous female gets herchance to heap her disdain on his head, the audience ,though prepared for a good deal , is not more preparedfor that than for anything else

,and is too broken in spirit

to rise to the situation . Not until the second scene of thethird act does Gil at last make up his mind to be a hero ;and the house, with a gasp of relief, exclaims ,

“Now we

know where w e are,” and settles down

—

to enjoy itsel fwithout further misgivings as to the relevance of the '

Tennysonian couplet on the playbill °

H is honor rooted indishonor stood;And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

I suggest that a happier selection would have been theepitaph which Jo Gargery could not afford to have cut

onhis father’s tomb

But whatsome’er the failings onhis part,

Remember, reader, he w ere that good inhis heart.

74


As to the acting, it must be remembered that there isnot the ghost o f a character in the whole story . Whenthis is allowed for, it w ill be admitted that the performance is a joyful sight. On the whole , I think I preferred—On the score of conciseness—Mr. Holman Clark ’s impersonation of Clon, the servant whose tongue had beencut out

,and w ho made me regret occasional ly that the

same Operation had not been performed on the others .Next to him my favorite was Mr . Cyri l Maude , who

wisely resolved that, since he could not make sense of hispart

,he would at any rate make fun Of it . He frankly

made Captain Larolle a pantaloon , and a very amusingpantaloon too . Judge , then , o f the dismay Of the audience

when , before the play was half over, Clon suddenly seizedCaptain Larolle round the waist, and rolled with him overa fearful precipice . For a moment w e all had a desperate

hope that Mr . Maude would bounce up through a startrap at the other side of the stage ; take a harlequin

’s leapthrough the first-floor window of the chateau ; and rollout again through the letter-box, closely pursued by Clon ;but it was not to be : Captain Larolle was gone for ever ;and I , for one, spent the rest of the evening lamenting hispremature decease .

Mr . Waring’s task was , on the whole, the easiest..When an actor has been condemned for years to moveabout the stage in ugly Bond Street tailorings , producingan effect of suppressed emotion by h is anxiety to avoidcreas ing them

,the effect of suddenly letting him loose

as a swordsman in a picturesque costume is dazzling,astonishing

,breath-bereaving. Here is Mr . Waring, who

has created Torvald Helmer and Master Builder Solnessin England

, and w ho has played a dozen other parts atleast better than th i s Gil de Berault ; and yet, solely be

75


cause he has exchanged the costume of a funeral mutefor that of a caval ier, and fights a duel instead of handinghis overcoat to a valet (always a most important incidentin a coat-and-waist-coat play ) , he

-i s suddenly hailed asa man who, after a meritorious but uneventful apprenticeship

,has suddenly burst on the world as a great actor .

Oh, the New Public ! the New Publ ic ! indifferent or un

comfortable over fine work : enthusiastic ove r cheap jobs !O f course Mr . Waring does the thing on his head, so tospeak ; but how can I compliment an actor who has donewhat he has done on stuff l ike that ?Miss Winifred Emery

'has no such advantage as Mr .Waring. For a man, a Louis Treize costume is a miracleOf elegance and romantic fascination compared to the

costume of to-day ; but the woman’s costume Of that time

is too matronly f or modern ideas Of active womanhood .

And then not only is the p art an unblushingly -bad one,

l imited to the merest mechanical feeding of the play withits one situation,

'but‘

its verbal style is of that artificialkind which Miss Emery. positively re fuses (quite rightly)to take seriously . Unfortunately, nothing will cure Mr .Rose Of ‘this style . H e nw rites i t exactly as -he might collect miniatures and snuffboxes ; and I am convinced thatin his heart he longs to make Miss Emery -play in feathersand a train held up by » tw o black b oys . He sticks ingratuitous asides as pure curiosities

,and occasional ly goes

the length o f a bit of Shakespeare—for instance, “You ’remad to say so , when the burglary is discovered . Mypersonal regard for Mr . Rose changes into malevolentexasperation uhder this treatment, especially when MissWinifred Emery acts as the executioner . For when'it

comes to tall'

talk and sham antique, Miss Emery takesan attitude wh ich is intolerably

’

humiliating to any sen

76


sitive playgoer . The actress w ho consummated her reputation in “The Benefit of the Doubt” di sappears ; and inher place w e have a cold , disgusted lady indulging anaudience of foolish grown-up men with an exh ibition forwhich she does not disguise her contempt. I f one could

detect the smallest gleam o f humorous enjoyment in herdel ivery o f the Obso lete stageynesses Of Baz ilide andRenée , one could accept them as burlesque ; but no suchre lenting is anywhe re apparent. Even be fore she speaks ,when she acknowledges her enthusiastic reception withthat little catch of the l ip and suffusion of the eye whi chis one Of her most irresistible effects , there is scorn in hernostri l . As she goes on she makes me feel indescribablyabj ect : if her glance accidentally lights anywhere nearme

,I instinctively dive under the stall in front, and make

a miserable pretence o f having dropped something. I fonly I could get up and assure her that I at least am nottaken in by such trash , and am wholly innocent o f thefolly Of the rest of my crawling sex , it would be a reliefto me ; but she unnerves me so that I dare not . She threwthe business Of Renée de Cocheforét to that silly audienceas she might have flung a bone to a troublesome dog ;and they wagged their tails , and l i cked her hands , andyelped, and gobbled it as if it were the choicest morselthey had ever tasted, even from her . After all

, why

should She waste good acting on such baby-gabies ?In the scenic department some special efi ect s o f light

ing were tried ; but on the first night they were not quite

up to the Bayreuth standard , though no doubt they areby this time working smoothly . The plan of representingfirelight in an interior by making the footlights j umpneeds a more complete conceahnent o f the gas flamesespecially for people w ho are nervous about fire . In

77


the decorations of the second act, instead of actual suitsOf armor, painted canvas profiles are used, perhaps incompliance with the demands o f Mr. Rose for someth ingOld- fashioned . This seems to

'

me to be mere atavism ;but it does not matter much . The orchestra, which wasput out of sight in Mr . Tree

’s time, i s now put out Of

hearing. There has been a valuable addition to the depthOf the stage ; and very effective use is made of it in thelast act . That reminds me , by the way, of Richel ieu,which gave Mr . Sydney Valentine an opening for a bitof acting which was duly received as an astonishingrarity . Mr . Bernard Gould, made up as a Constable ofFrance of the rugged warrior type, persuaded the audience that he had a fine part, mainly by dint o f concealing the fact that he privately knew better.Altogether, a silly piece o f business . Probably it willrun for two seasons at least.

ON DEADHEADS AND OTHERMATTERS

Love in Idleness : an original comedy in three acts.

By Louis N . Parker and Edward J . Goodman.

Terry’

s Theatre, 21 October, 1896.

H is Little Dodge : a comedy inthree acts. By JustinH untly McCarthy . From “

Le Systeme Ribadier,” byMM. Georges Feydeau and Maurice H ennequin.

Royalty Theatre, 24 October, 1896.

The S torm : a play in one act and tw o tableaux. By

Ian Robertson. Royalty Theatre, 24 October, 1896.

HY must a farcical comedy always break downin the third act ? One way Of answering i sto question the fact, citing

“Pink Dominos”

as an example of a three-act farcical comedy in whichthe third act was the best of the three . But what “PinkDominos” really proved was that three acts Of farce istoo much for human endurance , no matter how bri lliantly it may be kept going to the end . The publ ic i sapt to believe that it cannot have too much of a goodthing. I remember stealing about four dozen apples fromthe orchard of a relative when I was a small boy, andretiring to a loft with a confederate to eat them . Butwhen I had eaten eighteen I found

,though I was sti l l

in robust health , that it was better fun to pelt the henswith the remaining apples than to continue the banquet.Many grown persons have made cognate miscalculations .I have known a man

,during the craze for “Nancy Lee ,

”

engage a street piano to play it continuously for two

hours . I have known another bribe a hairdresser to brushhis hair by machinery for an unlimited period . Both

79


these voluptuaries, Of course, discovered that the art Oftorture is t he art i o f prolonging, not agony, but ecstasy.

I f we were to represent theatrical sensation by graphiccurves in the manner of Jevons

,we should find that the

more acute the sensation, the more rapidly does its curveof enjoyment descend and dive i nto the negative . Thisis specially true of the enjoyment . to be derived fromfarcical comedy. It is an unsympathetic enjoymentgand

therefore an abuse o f nature . The very dullest drama infive acts that ever attained for hal f a moment to somestir o f feel ing

,leaves the spectator, however it may have

bored him , happier and fresher than three acts o f farcicalcomedy at which he has been worried into laughing incessantly, with an empty heartu Mind, I am not moral izingabout farcical comedy : I am simply gIvmg the observedphysical facts concerning it . In th is cl inical spirit I haveover and over again warned the dramatist and the manager not to dwel l too long on galvanic substitutes forgenuine vivacity . .When the vogue o f . farcical comedywas at its utmost

,Mr . Gilbert applied its galvanic methods

to publ ic l i fe and fashion instead of merely to clandestinesprees and adulterous intrigues . But he tried it cautiouslyin one act at first

,and never ventured onmore -than tw o,

with lavish al lurements Of song, dance, and spectacle togive it l i fe and color

,in spite Of which , the .two acts al

ways proved quite enough . The fact is , .the end o f thesecond act is ' the point at which the spectators usuallyrealize that the , friendly interest in the , persons o f thedrama which sustained them

,and gave generosity and

humanity to their merriment during the earlier scenes , isentirely undeserved

,and that the pretty husband and

handsome.W i fe are the merest marionettes w ith .Witty

dialogue stuck into their mouths . The worst thing that

80


were only puppets in a piece of farcical clockwork,the

old disappointment, the old worry, the old rather peevishimpatience with the remaining turns of the mechanismset in . A genuine dramatic development, founded on ourinterest in Lady Miranda as suggested to us by MissJeffreys in. the first act, would have been followed withthe most expectant attention ; but hope changed to wearydisgust when her husband picked up a waistcoat strap

,

and accused her o f an intrigue with the gardener, whosewaistcoat was deficient in that particular .In “Love in Idleness” there is no such mistake as this .Mr. Parker knows only too wel l the value o f an alfec

t ionate relation between the audience and the persons o fthe drama . Mortimer Pendlebury, the hero, i s a lovablenincompoop, who muddles the affairs of al l his friends ,but so endears himsel f to Providence by his goodheartedness that they muddle themselves right again in the mostcheerful way imaginable, and unite him to his long lostlove, a nice old lady in lavender, impersonated by MissBella Pateman . Mr. Edward Terry, in a popular and notparticularly trying part, hits the character exactly , andplays not only with comic force, but with tact and del icacy .

But the acting success o f the play is Mr . de Lange ’s fireeating French Colonel , a perfectly original , absolutelyconvincing, and extremely funny version o f a part which,in any other hands , would have come out the most hackneyed stuff in the world . It is not often that tw o suchimpersonations as Pendlebury and Gondinot are to beseen at the same theatre ; and i f there is such a thing stil lsurviving in London as an unprofessional connoisseuro f acting, he wil l do well to see

“Love in Idleness” fortheir sakes .By the way

,I forgot that His Little Dodge

.i s pre

82


ceded at the Royalty by a new piece called The Storm,

by Mr. Ian Robertson . It is l ike an adaptation of a sent imental Academy picture .

Mr. Alexander has been driven to take the Royalty asa chapel of ease to the St . James ’s by “The Prisoner of

Zenda,” wh ich is now a permanent institution, l ike Ma

dame Tussaud ’s . I saw it again the other night ; andafter “The Red Robe” I do not hesitate to pronounce it aperfectly delectable play. It has gained greatly in smoothness and charm since its first representation , except in theprologue, which is stagey and overplayed . Mr . Alexanderas Rassendyl i s as fresh as paint : so is Mr . Vernon as

Sapt . Mr . H . B . I rv ing now plays Hentzau , and enjoyshimsel f immensely over it, after h is manner . He is, perhaps , our ablest exponent of acting as an amusement foryoung gentlemen, as his father is our ablest exponent ofacting as a fine art and serious profession . Miss JuliaNeil son now plays Flavia, and is a little less the princessand more the actress than Miss Millard . Mr . AubreySmith , as the black Elphberg, suffi ces in place of Mr .

Waring, w ho was wasted on it ; but the new Mayor’s wife

is hardly as fascinating as Miss Olga Brandon . MissEllis Jeffreys has made so brilliant a success in comedy

at the Royalty, thereby very happily confirming theOpinion of her real strength which I ventured upon whenMr. Pinero miscast her in “Mrs . Ebbsmith,

” that she canafford to forgive me i f I confess that her Antoinette deMauban struck me as being the very worst piece of actingan artist of her abil ity could conceivably perpetrate .

I am afraid Mrs . Kendal ’s opinion of the Press will notbe improved by the printing of a letter of hers which wasobviously not intended for publication . However

,the

blunder has incidentally done a public service by making

83


known Mrs . Kendal ’s very sensible opinion that criticsshould pay for their seats . Of course they should : thecomplimentary invitation system

~ is pure, unmitigated, indefensible corruption and blackmail , and nothing else .

But are we alone to blame in the matter ? When themanagers abolish fees they put in their programmes are

quest that the publ ic will not persist in offering them .

Why then do they not only bribe me, but force me to accept the bribe ? I must attend on the first night . I f I tryto book a stal l as a member o f the general publ ic

,I am

told that there are none to be disposed of,al l being re

served for invited guests , including the press . I f I declaremy identity, I am immediately a ccommodated, but notallowed to pay . From time to time we have virtuousannouncements from beginners that they are going to doaway with the system and pay for al l their seats . Thatonly proves that they are beginners , and are either makinga virtue of necessity, or else are too inexperienced toknow how the invitation system works . The public maytake it that for the present it is practically compulsory .

Al l that can be said for it i s that it is at least an improvement on the abominable old system o f

“orders ,” under

which newspapers claimed and exercised the right togive orders o f admission to the theatres to any one theypleased, the recipients being mostly tradesmen advertising intheir papers . Nowadays

,i f an editor wants a free

seat,he has to ask the manager for it ; and some editors ,

I regret to say, sti ll place themselves under heavy obl igations to managers in this way . There are many papersj ust worth a ticket from the point of view of the ex

perienced acting-manager i f they deluge the house withconstant and fulsome praise ; and this is largely suppliedby young men for no other consideration than the first

84


night stall,the result being, o f course , a mass o f corrupt

puffery for wh ich the complimentary Press ticket is solelyresponsible . Need I add that the pe rsonal position of acritic under the system is by no means a satis factory one ?

Under some managements he can always feel secure o f

his footing as at least the guest o f a gentleman— thougheven that is a false position for him ; but he cannot confine himsel f to theatres so managed . I remember on oneoccasion, at no less a place than the Royal I tal ian Opera ,a certain State official , well known and respected as a

scholarly musician and writer on music, pitched into the

Opera in the columns o f this journal . Some time afterwards he appeared at Covent Garden in the box of acritic of the first standing, representing a very eminentdai ly pape r . Sir Augustus Harr is promptly objected tohis compl imentary box being used to harbo r audaciouspersons w ho found fault with him . Of course the eminent daily paper immediately bought its box and wentover the eminent impresario l ike a steam-roller ; but theincident shows how l ittle a manager w ho is also a mano f the world is disposed to admit the independence of the

critic as long as he has to obl ige him . It is easy to say

that it is a mutual convenience but, in fact, i t i s amutual inconvenience . I f the incident just narrated hadoccurred at an ordinary theatre, where the necessary sortof seat for a critic is not always to be obtained on a first

night for money, instead of at the Opera, where seats canpract i cally always be bought, the manager might have

seriously inconvenienced the critic, especially as the paperwas a daily one, by boycot ting h im .

Let me mention another more recent and equally significant incident . At a first night last week a popularyoung actor of juvenile parts , in a theatre which he has

85

Dramat ic Opinions and Essays'

himsel f managed, went out between the acts into the hall ,which was crowded with critics , and announced in a loudvoice , with indignant earnestness, that he had just seenno less revolting a spectacle than the critic o f a leadingnewspaper walking into the stalls of a London theatre”

not in evening dress . He added many passionate expressions o f his disgust for the benefit of the company, atleast hal f a dozen of Whom, including myself, wore simplythe dress in which statesmen address publ ic meetings andgentlemen go to church . And yet I rather sympathizedwith his irritation . The theatrical deadhead gets histicket onthe implied condition that he “dresses the house .

”

I f he comes in morning dress, or allows the ladies whoaccompany him to look dowdy, he is struck off the freelist. To this actor-manager we critics were not his fellow-guests , but simply deadheads whose business it wasto “dress the house and write puffs . What else do weget our free tickets for ? Frankly

,I don ’t know . I f a

critic is an honest critic,he wil l write the samenotice from

a purchased seat as from a presented one . He is not freeto stay away if he isnot invited : a newspaper must noticea

‘

new play, just as much as it must notice an election .

He keeps money out of the house by occupying a seatthat would otherwise be sold to the publ ic : therefore hecosts the management hal f a guinea . As I have said , hecannot help himself ; but that does not alter the fact, ormake it less mischievous . Mrs . Kendal , who thinks weshould pay for our tickets , i s quite right ; the impetuousex-manager who thinks we should dress resplendently inreturn for our free tickets is quite right ; and w e are ahsolutely and defencelessly in the wrong.

As to the remedy, I shall deal with that another time .

86

IBSEN AHEAD

Donna Diana: a poetical comedy in four acts.

Adapted, and to a great extent rew ritten, from the

German version of Moreto’

s“El Desden con el

Desden,”by Westland Marston. Special revival.

Prince o f Wales Theatre, 4 November, 1896.

EW'

performances have struck such terror into meas that of Westland Marston ’s “Donna Diana” on

Wednesday afternoon . Hitherto I have lookedtranquilly onat such reversions to the classical ly romanticstyle which held the English stage from the time o f Otwayto that o f Sheridan Knowles and Westland Marston , because the trick of its execution had been so completely lostthat the performances were usually as senselessly ridic

ulous as an att empt to give one of Hasse ’s operas at Bayreuth with Sucher and Vogl in the principal parts wouldbe . But such occasions have always provoked the disquieting reflection that since it is quite certain Mrs . Siddons produced extraordinary effects in such plays in timeswhen they were , except in point o f ceremonious manners ,j ust as remote from real l i fe as they are at present

,there

must clearly be some way o f attacking them so as to gethold of an audience and escape al l suggestion of derision .

And on that came the threatening thought— suppose this

way should be rediscovered,could any mortal power pre

vent the plays coming back to their kingdom and resu

ming their rightful supremacy ? I say rightful ; for they

have irresistible credentials in their staginess . The theatrical imagination

,the love of the boards

,produced this

art and nursed it . When it was at his height the touchesof nature in Shakespeare were not endured : the passages

87


were altered and the events reshaped unti l they were ofa piece with the pure-bred drama engendered solely bythe passion of the stage-struck, uncrossed by nature , character, poetry, philosophy, social criticism

, or any otheral ien stock. Stage kings and queens , stage lovers , stagetyrants, stage parents , stage vi llains and stage heroes werealone to be found in it : and, natural ly, they alone were fitfor the stage or in their proper place there . Generationso f shallow critics , mostly amateurs , have laughed atPartridge for admiring the King in “Hamlet more thanHamlet himself (with Garrick in the part) , because anyone could see that the King was an actor . But surelyPartridge was right. He went to the theatre to see, nota real limited monarch, but a stage king, speaking asPartridges like to hear a king speaking, and able to havepeople ’s heads cut off , or to browbeat treason from behindan invisible hedge o f majestical ly asserted divinity. Fielding misunderstood the matter because in a world of Fieldings there would be neither kings nor Partridges . It isall very wel l for Hamlet to declare that the business ofthe theatre is to hold the mirror up to nature . He is allowed to do it out of respect for the bard, j ust as he isal lowed to say to a minor actor,

“Do not saw the airthus

,

” though he has himself been sawing the air all theevening, and the unfortunate minor actor has hardly hadthe chance of cutting a chip off with a penknife . Buteverybody knows perfectly well that the function of thetheatre is to real ize for the spectators certain pictureswhich their imagination craves for, the said pictures beingfantastic as the dreams of Alnaschar . Nature is onlybrought in as an accompl ice in the illusion : for example,the actress puts rouge onher cheek instead of burnt cork

because it looks more natural ; but the moment the i llusion

88

D ramat ic Opinions and'

Essays

de Berault have suddenly soared from a position o f general esteem as well-tailored sticks into enthusiastic reputeas vigorous and imaginative actors— it has become onlytoo probable that the genuine old stagey drama only needsfor its revival artists who, either by instinct or under theguidance o f the Nestors o f the profession

,shal l hit on the

right method o f execution .

Judge, then, of my consternation when Miss VioletVanbrugh, with Nestor Hermann Vezin looking on froma box, and officially announced as the artistic counsellorof the management, attacked the part of Donna Diana inWestland Marston ’s obsolete play with the superblycharged bearing, the picturesque plastique, and the impassioned declamation which one associates with the Siddons school ! More terri fying sti ll , the play began to l iveand move under this treatment. Cold drops stood onmy brow as , turning to Mr . Archer, whose gloomy andbodeful eye seemed to look through and through DonnaDiana to immeasurable disaster beyond, I said, If thissucceeds

, w e shal l have the whole Siddons repertory backagain .

” And,in a way

,it did succeed . I f Westland

Marston had been a trifle less tamely sensible and sedatelyliterary , and i f the rest of the company had been able toplay up to Miss Vanbrugh ’s pitch , it might have succeededwith frightful completeness . Fortunately none of theothers quite attained the palmy plane . Mr . V ibart ’s defiantconvexity of attitude had not the true classic balance— infact

,there were moments when his keeping any balance

at al l seemed to disprove gravitation . Mr . Bourchier, i fone must be quite frank, is spreading himself at the waistso rapidly that he is losing his smartness and vocal resonance , and wil l , at his present rate of expansion, be fit

for no part except Falstaff in a few years more . The

90


actor who drinks is in abad way ; but the actor~

who cats

is lost. Why, with such excellent domestic influencesaround h im , i s Mr . Bourchier not restrained from thepleasures of the table ? He has also a trick of dashing atthe end o f a speech so impetuously that he is carried fullythree words into the next be fore he can stop himself . I fhe has to say “

H ow do you do ? Glad to see you. Isyour mother quite well ?” it comes out thus H ow do

you do glad to . See you is your mother. Quite well .”

All o f which, though alleviated by tunics , tights and blankverse, is the harder to bear because Mr . Bourchier wouldbe one o f our best comedians i f only he would exact thatmuch , and nothing less , from himself . Mr . Ell iot, cheeredto find the old style looking up again

,played Perin with

excel lent discretion—w as , indeed , the only male memberof the cast who material ly helped the play ; and Mr . Kinghom e , though seemingly more bewildered than encour

aged by the setting back o f the clock,took his tu rn as

“the sovereign duke o f Barcelona” like a man to whomsuch crazy adventures had once been quite familiar . Miss

Irene Vanbrugh , as the malapert waiting wench who ,ever

since the spacious times of great Elizabeth,has been the

genteel blankversemonger’

s notion o f comic relie f, fulfilled her doom with a not too ghastly sprightl iness butthe other ladies were out o f the question : they had not atouch of the requisite carriage and style

,and presented

themselves as tw o shapeless anachronisms , l ike a coupleof English housemaids at the Court of Spain . Let us byall means congratulate ourselves to the full on the factthat our young actresses are at least not stagey ; but letus also be careful not to confuse the actress who knowstoo much to be stagey with the actress w ho does not knowenough .

91


For the rest, all I can say is that I was glad to lookagain on the front scenes of my youth, and to see MissVanbrugh , after announcing her ski ll as a lute player,appear with an imitation lyre , wrenched from the pedalso f an old- fashioned grand piano, and graceful ly pluckw ith her j ewelled fingers at four brass bars about aneighth o f an inch thick . I f Miss Vanbrugh wil l apply ‘toMr . Arnold Dolmetsch, he wi ll , I have no doubt, be gladto show her a real lute . She can “return the service byshowing him how very effective a pretty woman lookswhen she is playing it the right way. Though, indeed ,that can be learnt from so many fifteenth-century paintersthat the wonder is that Miss Vanbrugh should not knowall about it.What, then , is to be the end of all this revival ofstaginess ? Is the mirror never again to be held up tonature in the theatre ? Do not be alarmed, pious playgoer : people get tired of everything, and of nothingsooner than of what they most l ike . They will soon beginto loathe these romantic dreams of theirs , and crave tobe tormented

,vivisected, lectured, sermonized, appalled

by the truths which they passionately denounce as monstrosities . Already

, on the very top of the wave o f stagei llusion, rises Ibsen, with his mercilessly set mouth andseer ’s forehead

,menacing us with a new play. Where

upon we realize how we have shirked the last one—howwe have put ofl the torture of

“Little Eyolf” as one puts

off a visit to the dentist . But the torture tempts us in spiteo f ourselves ; we feel that it must be gone through with ;and now , accordingly , comes Miss Hedda Hi lda GablerWangcl Robins , christened El izabeth , and bids us notonly prepare to be tortured , but subscribe to enable herto buy the rack. A monstrous proposition, but one that has

92


do‘

not mind il l usage so much , because the strongest position for a woman is that of a victim : besides , Ibsen isevidently highly susceptible to women, onwhich accountthey wi l l forgive him anything

,even such remorseless

brutal ities as Rita’s reproach to her husband for his indifference to his conjugal privileges : “There stood yourchampagne ; but you tasted it .not,

” which would be anoutrage i f it were not a masterstroke . Apart fromthesensational scene of the drowning of Little Eyolf at theend of the first act , the theatre and its characteri stic imaginings are ruthlessly set aside for the relentless holdingup o f the mirror to Nature as seen under Ibsen rays thatpierce our most secret cupboards and reveal the grin ofthe skeleton there . The remorseless exposure and analysiso f the marriage founded on passion and beauty and goldand green

'

forests , the identity of its love with the cruellesthate

,and of this same hate with the affection excited by

the child ( the“Kreutzer Sonata” theme ) , goes on, with

out the smallest concession to the claims of staginess , untilthe pair are final ly dismissed, somewhat tritely, to curethemselves as best they can by sea air and work in anorphanage . Yes

, w e shall have rare afternoons at theAvenue Theatre . If w e do not get our eight shillings ’

worth of anguish it will not be Ibsen ’s fault .Oddly enough , Miss Robins announces that the profits

o f the torture chamber will go towards a fund, underdistinguished auditorship, for the performance o f otherplays , the first being the ultra-romantic

,ultra-stagey,

Mariana” of Echegaray. When, on the publication of

that play by Mr . Fisher Unwin,I urged its suitabil ity for

production, nobody would bel ieve me , because events hadnot then proved the sagacity of my repeated assertions

that the public were tired of tailormade plays, and were

94


ripe for a revival of color and costume ; and now , alas !my prophecies are forgotten in the excitement created bytheir fulfilment. That is the tragedy of my career. I shalldie as I have lived, poor and unlucky, because I am likea clock that goes fast : I always strike twelve an hourbefore noon.

PEER GYNT IN PARIS

Peer Gynt : a dramatic poem infive acts, by HenrikIbsen. Theatre de l

’

CEuvre (Theatre de l a Nou

veaute'

, Rue Blanche, Paris) . 12 November, 1896.

Peer Gynt : translated into French prose, w ith a fewpassages in rhymed metre, by M. le Comte Proz or,in

“La Nouvelle Revue ,” 15 May and I and 15 June ,

1896.

Peer Gynt : a metrical translation into English byCharles andWilliam Archer. London: Walter Sco tt.1892.

HE humiliation of the English stage is now com

plete . Paris , that belated capital which makes theintelligent Englishman imagine himsel f back in

the Dublin or Edinburgh of the eighteenth century , hasbeen be forehand with us in producing Peer Gynt .”

With in five months o f its revelation in France through theComte Proz or’s translation, it has been produced by a

French actor-manager who did not play the principal parthimself, but undertook tw o minor ones which were noteven mentioned in the programme . We have had the muchmore complete translation of Messrs . William and CharlesArcher in our hands for four years ; and w e may con

5


fidently expect the first performance in 1920 or thereabouts , with much trumpeting of the novelty of the pieceand the daring of the manager .I"“Peer Gynt” will finally smash anti-Ibsenism in Europe

,

because Peer is everybody’s hero . He has the same effecton the imagination that Hamlet, Faust, and Mozart

’s DonJuan have had . Thousands of people who wi ll never readanother l ine of Ibsen will read “Peer Gynt” again andagain ; and millions will be conscious o f him as part ofthe poetic currency of the world without reading him atall . The witches in Macbeth, the ghost in

“Hamlet,”

the statue in “Don Juan,” and Mephistopheles

,wil l not

be more fami l iar to the twentieth century than the Boyg,the Button Moulder, the Strange Passenger, and the LeanPerson . It is of no use to argue about it ; nobody who issusceptible to legendary poetry can escape the spel l i fhe once opens the book

,or— as I can now affi rm from

experience— if he once sees even the shabbiest representation o f a few scenes from it . Take the most conscientiousanti-Ibsenite you can find, and let him enlarge to hisheart’s content on the defects of Ibsen . Then ask himwhat about “Peer Gynt.” He will instantly prot est thatyou have hit him unfairly— that “Peer Gynt” must be leftout o f the controversy . I hereby challenge any man inEngland with a reputation to lose to deny that “PeerGynt” i s not one o f his own and the world ’s very choicesttreasures in its kind . Mind , gentlemen, I do not wantto know whether “Peer Gynt is

'

right or wrong, goodart or bad art : the question is whether you can get awayfrom it—whether you ever had the same sensation beforein reading a dramatic poem— whether you ever had evena kindred sensation except from the work of men whose

greatness is now beyond question . The only people who

96


the hair for a moment to allow him to pray without eliciting anything more to the purpose than “Give us this dayour daily bread,

”was cut, with, of course, the vital episode

of the second appearance of the Strange Passenger . Asthe performance nevertheless lasted nearly four hoursincluding, however, a good deal of silly encoring ofGrieg

’

s music, and some avoidable intervals between thescenes— extensive curtailment was inevitable, a completerepresentation being only possible under Bayreuth con

ditions.

There was only one instance of deliberate melodramaticvulgarization o f the poem . In the fourth act, after Peerhas made a hopeless donkey of himsel f with his HottentotVenus , and been tricked and robbed by her, he argues hisway in his usual fashion back into his own self-respect,arriving in about three minutes at the point of saying,

“It

’

s excusable, sure, if I hold up my headAnd feel my w orth as the man, Peer Gynt,A lso called H uman-life’s Emperor.”

At this point Ibsen introduces the short scene in whichwe see the woman whom Peer has deserted, and who isfaithful ly waiting for him in the north

,sitting outsule the

old hut in the sunshine, spinning and tending her goats,and singing her song of blessing on the absent man. Now

i t is of the essence o f the contrast that Peer, excellentlyqualified at this moment, not to be the hero of Solveig

’

s

aff ectionate faith , but to make an intoxicating success inLondon at a Metropole banquet as a Nitrate King or bigshowman, should never think of her (though he is constantly recal ling, more or less inaccurately, all sorts ofscraps of his old experiences, including his amours withthe Green Clad one) , but should go on to the cl imax of

98


his coronation by the lunatic Begriffenfeldt as Emperorof Himsel f” with a straw crown in the Cairo bedlam . I

regret to say that M . Lugné Poe so completely missed

Ibsen’s intention here, that he made Peer go to s leep 61

propos de bottes ; darkened the stage ; and exhibitedSolveig to him as a dream vi s ion in the conventionalDrury Lane fourth-act style . For which , in my opinion

-7

(which is softened by the most friendly personal disposition towards M . Poe ) , he ought to have been gently led/away and guillotined . It is quite clear that Peer Gyntremains absolutely unredeemed all through this elderlyperiod of his career ; and even when we meet him in thelast act returning to Norway an old man , he is still thesame clever, vain, greedy, sentimental , rather fascinatingbraggart and egoist . When the ship runs down a boathe frantically denounces the inhumanity of the cook andsailors because they will not accept his money to risk theirlives in an attempt to save the drowning men . Immedi

ately after, when the sh ip is wrecked, he drowns the cookto save his own li fe without a moment’s remorse . Thenup comes the Strange Passenger out of the depths to askhim whether he has never even once—say once in six

months— felt that strange sense ( that occasional ly desperately dangerous sense, as Ibsen well knows ) for whichwe have dozens of old creed names— “divine grace ,

” “thefear of God,

” “conviction of sin,

” and so ou—but no quitesatisfactory modern one. Pee r no more understands whathe means than i f he were an average London journalist .His glimpse of the fact that the Strange Passenger isnot, as he at first feared , the devil , but rather a divinemessenger, simply rel ieves his terror . In the countrygraveyard where , chancing on the funeral of the hero o fthe chopped finger, a man complete ly the reverse o f him


sel f, he hears the pri est’s tribute to the characterdeceased, he says

I could almost believe it was I that sleptAnd heard ina vi sionmy panegyric.

”

In these scenes , in the one at the : auction, in the woodwhere, comparing himself to the wild onion he is eating,he strips off the successive layers to find the core of it

,

and , finding that it is al l layers and no core,exclaims

,

“Nature is witty, there is no sign of the final catastropheexcept a certain growing desperation, an ironical findingo f himsel f out, which makes a wonderful emotional undercurrent through the play in this act . It is not unti l hestumbles on the hut, and hears the woman singing in it ,that the blow falls , and for the first time the mysterioussense mentioned by the Strange Passenger seizes him .

With this point rightly brought out , the symbol ism o f thefol lowing scenes becomes more vivid and real than al l thereal horses and real water ever lavished on a popularmelodrama . Peer ’s wi ld run through the night over thecharred heath , stumbl ing over the threadballs and brokenstraws , dripped upon by the dewdrops, pelted by thewithered leaves that are all that i s left o f the songs heshould have sung, the tears he should have wept, thebel iefs he should have proclaimed, the deeds he shouldhave achieved

,is fantastic only in so far as it deals with

real ities that cannot be presented prosaically . As thedivine case against Peer is followed up, the interest accumulates in a way

'that no Adelphi court-martial can evensuggest . The reappearance of the Strange Passenger asthe Button Moulder. commissioned to melt up Peer in hiscasting ladle as so much

: unindividual ized raw material ;Peer ’s franti c attempts to prove that he has always been

100


sur ma tombe : Ci-git personne, showed how eff ectual lyIbsen, at ‘ his most abstract point, can draw blood evenfrom a congenitally unmetaphysical nation, to which theplay seems as much a mixture of sentiment and stagediablerie as

“Faust” seemed to Gounod . Tw o other scenesmoved the audience deeply . One was where Solveig joinsPeer in the mountains , and is left by him with the words ,“Be my way long or short, you must wait for me

”

; andthe other, which produced a tremendous effect—w e shouldhave Peer Gynt” in : London this season i f any of ouractor-managers had been there to witness it— the death “

o f Peer ’s mother . The rest was l istened to with alertinterest and occasional amazement, which was not alwaysIbsen’s fault; Only one scene— that with the Boygfailed, because it was totally unintel ligible . It was presented as a ‘ continuation of the Dovre scene— in itsel f :

puzzl ing enough ; and the audience stared in wonder ata pitchy dark stage , with Peer howling, a strange voicesqueal ing behind the scenes , a woman call ing at intervals ,and not a word that iany one could catch . It was let passwi th politely smothered laughter as a characteristic Ibsen ,

insanity ; though whether this verdict would have beenmaterially changed i f the dialogue had been clearly followed is an open question ; for the Boyg (called LeTordu” by the Comte Prozor, and

“Le Tortueux” in theplaybill ) , having elusiveness as his natural special ity, isparticularly hard to lay hold of in the disguise of anal legory.

As to the performance , I am not sure that I know howgood

'the'

actors were ; for Ibsen’s grip o f humanity is sopowerful that ‘

almost any presentable performer can counton a degree of i llusion in his parts wh ich Duse hersel ffailed to produce when she tried Shakespeare . To say

102


that Deval did not exhaust his opportunity as Pee r is onlyto say that he is not quite the greatest tragic , comic , andcharacter actor in the world . He misunderstood thechronology o f the play, and made Peer no older on theship than in Morocco , whilst in the last scene he madehim a doddering centenarian . He spoi led the famouscomment on the blowing up of the yacht,

“God takes

fatherly thought for my pe rsonal weal ; but economicalno , that he isn

’t,

” by an untimely stage fal l ; but otherwisehe managed the part intelligently and played with spiritand feeling. Albert-Mayer played

'

no less than four parts :the Boyg, A slak

‘

the Smith , the Strange Passenger, andthe Button Moulder, and was good in al l , bar the Boyg.

Lugue Poe himsel f played two parts , Solveig’

s father andthe travell ing Engl ishman, Mr . Cotton . Mr . Cotton wasimmense . He was a fair , healthy, good-looking youngman

,rather heavy in hand , sti ff with a quiet determination

to hold his own among that gang o f damned foreigners ,and speaking French with an accent which made it a j oyto hear him say

“C ’est trop di re” (“Say trow deah , with

the tongue kept carefu lly back from the teeth ) . He certainly did infinite credit to the activity and accuracy o f

Lugné Poe’

s observation during his visit to this country .

Suzanne Auclaire , who will be vividly remembered by al lthose who saw her here as Hi lda Wangel in

“The Master

Bui lder,

”was cast for Solveig, not altogether wisely , I

think, as the part is too grave and maternal for her . Inthe last scene , which she chanted in a golden voice verymuch a la Bernhardt , she did not represent Solveig asblind, nor did her make-up suggest anything more thana dark Southern woman of about forty-two

,although

Peer was clearly at least ninety-nine , and by no meansyoung for his age : in fact, he might have been the original

103


pilgrim with the white locks flowing . Her naive charmcarried her well through the youthful scenes but on thewhole she was a little afraid of the part, and certainly didnot make the most o f i t. Madame Barbieri

,as Aase

,was

too much the stage crone ; but she probably had no alternative to that or betraying her real age, which was muchtoo young. She must have been abundantly satisfied withthe overwhelming effect o f her death scene . The onlyaltogether inefficient member of the cast was the GreenClad One, who did not understand her part, and did notattend to Ibsen’s directions . And the Brat, unfortunately,was a rather pretty chi ld, very inadequately disfiguredby a dab of burnt cork on the cheek.

Many thousand pounds might be lavished on thescenery and mounting o f

“Peer Gynt . M . Lugné Poecan hardly have lavished twenty pounds on it. PeerGynt

’

s costume as the Prophet was of the Dumb Cramboorder : his caftan was an old dressing-gown, and his tur ~

ban,though authentic, hardly new . There was no horse

and— to my bitter disappointment—no pig. A few pantomime masks , with all fours and tails , furnished forth thetrol ls in the Dovre scene ; and the

’

explosion o f the yachtwas represented by somebody upsetting a chair in thewing . Anitra, with black curtains of hair transfixed bypeonies over each ear

,a whited face, and a general air o f

being made up with the most desperate inadequacy of

person and wardrobe after Mrs . Patrick Campbell ’s Juliet,insisted upon an encore for a dance which M . Fouquier,o f the Figaro,

” described,without exaggeration , as

“lescontorsions d ’un lievre qui a recu uncoup de feu dans lesreins .” And yet this performance took place in a theatrenearly as large as Drury Lane

,completely fil led with an

audience of much the same class as one sees here at a

104

LITTLE EV OLE

Little Eyolf: a play in. three acts, by H enrik Ibsen.

Avenue Theatre, 23 November, 1896.

HE happiest and truest epithet that has yet beenappl ied to the Ibsen -drama in this country camefrom Mr . Clement Scott when he said that Ibsen

was suburban .

” That is the whole secret o f it . I f Mr .Scott had only embraced his discovery instead of quarrelling with -it , what splendid Ibsen critic he w ould

'have

made ! Suburbanity at present means modern civi l ization .

The active, germinating l i fe in the‘

households o f to-daycannot be typified by an aristocratic hero, an ingenuousheroine , a gentleman-forger abetted by an Artful Dodger,and a parlormaid who takes h alf-sovereigns and kissesfrom the male visitors . Such interiors exist on the stage,and nowhere else : therefore .the . only people who are accustomedito them

'

and at home -m them are the dramaticcritics . But if you ask me where you can find the Helmerhousehold

,the Allmers household, the Solness household,

the Rosmer househo ld, and all the other Ibsen households,I reply

,

“Jump out o f a train anywhere between Wimbledonand Haslemere ; walk into the first villa you come to ;and there you are .

” Indeed you need not go so farHampstead

,Maida Vale

, or West Kensington wi ll serveyour turn ; but it i s as wel l to remind people that the truesuburbs are now the forty-mi le radius, and that Camberwel l and Brixton are no longer the suburbs, but the overflow o f Gower Street— the genteel slums , in short . Andthis suburban l i fe, except in so far as it i s total ly vegetableand undramatic, i s the l ife depicted by Ibsen . Doubtless

106


some o f our critics are quite sincere in th inking it a vulgarl i fe

,in considering the conversations which men hold w ith

their wives in it improper, in finding its psychology puzz ling and unfamiliar, and . in forgetting that its bookshelves and its music cabinets are laden w i th works whi chdid not exist for them , and w hich are the daily bread o f

young women educated very differently from the sistersand wives of their day . No wonder they are not at easein an atmosphere of ideas and'

assumptions and attitudeswhich seem to them '

bew ildering , morbid , affected , ex

travagant, and altogether incredible as the common curreney of suburban l i fe . But Ibsen knows better . His

suburban drama is the inevitable outcome o f a suburbancivi l ization (meaning a civilization. that appreciates freshair ) and the true explanation of Hedda Gabler ’s vogueis that given by Mr . Grant Allen take her in to dinnertwice a week .

”

Another change that the cri tics have failed to reckonwith is the change in fiction. B yron remarked that

Romances paint at full length people’s woo ings,But only give a bust of marriages.

That was true enough in the days of Si r Walter Scott ,when a be trothed heroine with the sl ightest knowledge o fwhat marriage meant would have shocked the public asmuch as the same ignorance tod ay would strike it astragic i f real , and indecent i f simulated . The resul t wasthat the romancer, when he came : to a love scene , had tofrankly , ask his “gentle reader” ~ to al low h im to omit theconversation as being necessarily too idiotic to interestany one .

-We have fortunately long pas sed out o f . that

stage in novels . By the ~

time we had reached “Vanity

107


Fair” and Middlemarch —both pretty old and primstories now— marriage had become the starting point o four romances . Love is as much the romancer ’s theme asever ; but married love and the courtships of young peoplewho are appalled by the problems o f l i fe and motherhoodhave left the governesses and curates

,the Amandas and

Tom Joneses of other days, far out o f sight. Ten yearsago the stage was as far behind Sir Walter Scott as he isbehind Madame Sarah Grand . But when Ibsen took i tby the scruff o f the neck j ust as Wagner took the Opera,then

,willy nilly, it had to come along. And now what

are the critics going to do ? The Ibsen drama is preeminently the drama of marriage . I f dramatic criticismreceives it in the spirit of the nurse ’s husband in “Romeoand Jul iet,

” i f it grins and makes remarks about “thesecrets o f the alcove,

” i f it pours forth columns which arehal f pornographic pleasantry and the other half shampropriety, then the end will be , not in the least that Ibsenwill be banned

,but that dramatic criticism wil l cease to

be read . And what a frightful blow that would be toEngl ish culture !

“Little Eyolf i s an extraordinarily powerful play, although none of the characters are as fascinatingly individualiz ed as Solness or Rosmer, Hedda or Nora . Thetheme is a marriage— an ideal marriage from the sub

urban point of view . A young gentleman, a student andan idealist, i s compelled to drudge at teaching to supporthimsel f. He meets a beauti ful young woman . They fallin love with one another ; and by the greatest piece ofluck in the world (suburbanly considered) she has plentyof money . Thus is he set free by his marriage to livehis own li fe in his own way . That is j ust where an or

dinary play leaves off , and j ust where an Ibsen play

108

D ramat ic Opinions and Essays

critics . So the little gnawing thing in the h ouse—thechild— follows the Ratw ife and is drowned, leaving thepair awakened by the blow to a frightful consciousness ofthemselves , the woman as a mere animal , the manas amoonstruck nincompoop, keeping up appearances as asuburban lady and gentleman with nothing to do ‘

but

enj oy themselves . Even the sister has discovered nowthat she is not real ly a sister—also a not unprecedentedsuburban possibi l ity— and sees that the '

passionate stagei s ahead o i -her too ; so , though she loves the husband,she has to get out of his way by the pre-eminently .suburban expedient -o i marrying a man whom she does notlove , and w ho ,

'like Rita, is warm-blooded and bent onthe undivided

, unshared .possession of the obj ect o f hispassion. At last the love o f the w omanp asses out of the

[passionate stage ; and immediately, with the practical-sense o f her sex , she proposes, not to go up into themountains or to write amateur treatises, but to occupyrherself with her duties as landed proprietress , instead of

merely spending the revenues of her property in keepinga monogamic harem . .The gentleman asks to be al lowedto lend a hand ; and immediately the storm subsides , easi lyenough , leaving the couple on sol id ground . This is theplay, as actual 'and near to us as the Brighton and SouthCoast .Railway— this is the merci lessly heart-searchingsermon, touching al l of us somewhere, and some of useverywhere

, w hich we, the critics , have summed up as“secrets o f . the alcove .

”Our cheeks, whose whiteness

Mr. Arthur Roberts has assailed in vain, have mantledat “the coarseness and vulgarity which are noted characteristics o f the author” ( I am quo ting,

~

w ith aw e, myfastidiously high-toned col league o f theAnd .yet the divine messenger only meant to make us

110


ashamed o f ourselves . That is the w ay divine me ssengersalways do muddle r their business .

The performance was o f course a very remarkable one .

.When,in a cast o f five

, you have the three best yet discovered actresses o f their

_

generation, you naturally lookfor something extraordinary . Miss Achurch was - theonly one who ran any risk o f failure . The Ratw ife and

Asta are excel lent parts ; but they are not arduous ones .Rita, on the other hand , i s one o f the heaviest ever .written : any single act o f it would exhaus t an actress of nomore than ordinary resources . But -Miss Achurch wasmore than equal to the occasion . Her power seemed to

grow with its own expenditure . The terrible outburst atthe end o f the first act did not leave a scrape on her

voice (wh i ch appears to have the compass o f a mili taryband ) and threw her into victorious action in that tearingsecond act instead o f wrecking her. She played with all

her old originality and success , and with more than herold authority over her audience . She had to speak somedangerous lines— lines of a kind that usually find out thevulgar spots in an audience and give an excuse for alaugh—but nobody laughed or wanted to laugh at MissAchurch . The re stood your champagne ; but you tastedi t not,

” neither - sh irked nor slurred , but dr iven home tothe las t syllable, did not elici t an audible breath from acompletely dominated audience . Later on. I confess I lostsight of .Rita a little in studying the surpri sing capacityMiss Achurch showed as a . dramatic instrument . Fo r thefirst time one clearly saw the superfluity of power and

the vehemence o f intel l igence which make her o ften so

reckless as to the beauty o f - her methods o f expression .

As Rita she produced almost every sound that a bighuman voice can , from a creak like the Opening o f a rusty

I I I


canal lock to a melodius tenor note that the most robustSiegfried might have envied . She looked at one momentlike a young, wel l-dressed, very pretty woman : at anothershe was like a desperate creature just fished dripping outof the river by the Thames pol ice . Yet another moment

,

and she was the incarnation of impetuous, ungovernablestrength . Her face was sometimes W insome, sometimeslistlessly wretched , sometimes l ike the head o f a statueof Victory

,sometimes suffused

,horrible

,threatening, like

Bel lona or Medusa . She would cross from left to rightl ike a queen, and from right to left with , so to speak , hertoes turned in, her hair coming down, and her slipperscoming off . A more utter recklessness, not only of fashion, but of beauty, could hardly be imagined : beauty toMiss Achurch is only one effect among others to beproduced

,not a condition of al l effects . But then she

can do what our beauti ful actresses cannot do : she can

attain the force and terror o f Sarah Bernhardt’s mostvehement explosions without Sarah ’s violence and abandonment , and with every appearance o f having reservesof power still held inrestraint . With al l her clevernessas a real istic actress she must be classed technical ly as aheroic actress ; and I very much doubt whether w e shal lsee her often until she comes into the field with a repertory as highly special ized as that o f Sir Henry Irving orDuse . For it is so clear that she would act an averageLondon success to pieces and play an average actor-manager off the stage

,that we need not expect to see much of

her as that useful and pretty auxi l iary , a leading lady .

Being myself a devotee of the beauti ful school , I likebeing enchanted by Mrs . Patrick Campbell better thanbeing frightened

,harrowed, astonished, conscience

stricken,devastated, and dreadfully delighted in general

112


the pathos the re was nothing : Asta was only a picture,

and; like'

a picture, did‘not develop . The picture,being

sympathetic and pretty, has been much admired ; butthose who have not seen Miss Robins play HildaWangcl

have no idea o f what she i s l ike when she real ly acts herpart instead of merely giving an urbanely pictorial representation o f it . As to A llmers, how could he recom

mend himself to spectators who saw in him everythingthat they are ashamed o f in themselves ? Mr . CourtenayThorpe played -very intel l igently, which , for such a part,and in such a play, _

is'

saying a good deal ; but he washampered

'

a l ittle . by the change from the smal l and intimate auditorium in ‘ which he has been accustomed to

play Ibsen, to ‘ the Avenue , which ingeniously combinesthe acoustic difficulties o f a large theatre with the peenniary capacity o f

‘ a smal l one . Master Stewart Dawson ,as Eyolf,

!was one of the best actors in the company . Mr .Lowne , as Borgheim , was as much out o f tone as a Leadersunset in a Rembrandt picture—no fault o f h is, of course

( the' audience evidently l iked him ) , but stil l a blemish on

the play .

And this brings me to a final'

criticism . The momentI put mysel f into my old attitude as musical critic, I atonce perceive that the . performance , as a whole, was anunsatisfactory one . You may remonstrate, and ask me

how I can say so after admitting that the performersshowed such extraordinary talent—even genius . It isvery simple

,nevertheless . Suppose you take Isaye, Sara

sate,Joachim

,and Hofmann

,and tumble them al l to

gether to give a scratch performance of one of Bee

thoven’

s posthumous quartets at some benefit concert .

Suppose you also take the two De Reszkes , Calvé, andMiss Eames , and set them to sing a glee under the same

114


circumstances . They wi ll al l show prodigious individualtalent ; but the resultant pe rformances of the quartet andglee wil l be inferior , as wholes , to that o f an ordinaryglee club or group of musicians w ho have practi sed foryears together . The Avenue performance was a parallelcase . There was nothing like the atrnosphere whichLugné Poe got in Rosmersholm . Miss Achurch managed to play the second act as i f she had played it everyweek for twenty years ; but otherwi se the performance ,interesting as it was, was none the less a scratch one . I fonly the company could keep together for a while ! Butperhaps that is too much to hOpe for at present , though itis encouraging to see that the performances are to becontinued next week , the five matinees—al l crowded

,by

the way—having by no means exhausted the demand forplaces .

Several performances during the past fortnight remainto be chronicled ; but Ibsen wil l have his due ; and he hasnot left me room enough to do justice to any one elsethis week .

115

TOUJOURS SHAKESPEARE

As You Like I t. S t . James’

s Theatre, 2 December,1896.

HE i rony of Fate prevails at the St . James ’s Theatre . For years we have been urging the managers to give us Shakespeare’s plays as he wrote

them , playing them intel ligently and enjoyingly as pleasant stories , instead of mutilating them ,

altering them,

and celebrating them as superstitious rites . After threehundred years Mr. George Alexander has taken us atour words , as far as the clock permits , and given us

“AsYou Like It” at ful l four hours ’ length . And , alas ! iti s j ust too late : the Bard gets his chance at the momentwhen his obsolescence has become unendurable . Nevertheless, we were right ; for this production o f Mr . Alexander’s

,though the longest

,is infinitely the least tedious ,

and, in those parts which depend on the management, themost delightful I have seen .

-But yet, what a play ! Itwas in “As You Like It” that the sententious Wil l iamfirst began to Openly exploit the fondness of the BritishPubl ic for sham moral izing and stage “phi losophy.

” Itcontains one passage that specially exasperates me .

Jaques , who spends his time , l ike Hamlet, in vainly emulating the wisdom o f Sancho Panza , comes in laughingin a superior manner because he has met a fool in theforest, who

Says very w isely, It is teno’

clock.

Thus w e may see [quoth he] how the w orld wags.

’Tis but an hour ago since it w as nine ;

And after one hour mo re’tw ill be eleven.

And so ,from hour to hour, w e ripe and ripe ;

And then, from hour to hour, w e rot and rot ;

And thereby hangs a tale .

”

116


scan any worse than Richard’s exclamation,All the

world to nothing !And then Touchstone, with his rare j ests about theknight that swore by his honor they were good pancakes ! Who would endure such humor from any one

but Shakespeare —an Eskimo would demand his moneyback i f a modern author offered him such fare . And thecomfortable old Duke , symbolical o f the British villadweller, who likes to find “sermons in stones and goodin everything,

” and then to have a good dinner ! Thisunvenerable impostor, expanding on his mixed diet ofious twaddle and venison, rouses my worst passions .Even when Shakespeare, in h is efforts to be a socialphilo‘sopher, does rise for an instant to the level o f asixth-rate Kingsley, his solemn sel f-complacency infu

L riates me . And yet, so wonderful is his art, that it is noteasy to disentangle what is unbearable from what is irresistible . Orlando one moment says

Whate’er you are

That in this desert inaccessibleUnder the shade o f melancho ly boughsLose andneglect the creeping hours of time,

which, though it indicates a thoroughly unhealthy imagination, and would have been impossible to, for instance ,Chaucer

,i s yet magical ly fine o f its kind . The next

moment he tacks on l ines which would have revolted Mr.Pecksniff

If ever you have looked onbetter days,If ever beenw here bells have knolled to church ,

[H ow perfectly the atmosphere of the rented

pm is caught in this incredible line ! ]If ever sat at any good man

’

s feast,If ever from your eyelids w iped

118


I really shall get si ck i f I quote any more of i t . Wasever such canting, snivelling, hypocritical unctuousnessexuded by an actor anxious to show that he was abovehis profession, and was a thoroughly respectable man inprivate li fe ? Why cannot all th is putrescence be cut our,of the play , and only the vital parts— the genuine storytel ling, the fun, the poetry, the drama , be retained ?

Simply because, i f nothing were left of Shakespeare buthis genius, our Shakespearolaters would mi ss all thatthey admire in him .

" J

Notwithstanding these drawbacks , the fascination o f

As You Like It” i s still very great. It has the overwhelming advantage of being written for the most partin prose instead o f in blank verse, which any fool canwrite . And such prose ! The first scene alone

,with its

energy o f exposition, each phrase driving its meaningand feeling in up to the head at one brief, sure stroke, isworth

'

ten acts o f the ordinary El izabethan sing- song .

It cannot be said that the blank verse is reserved forthose passages which demand a loftier expression

,since

Le Beau and Corin drop into it, l ike Mr . Si las Wegg, on

the most inadeq uate provocation ; but at least there is notmuch of it. The popularity o f Rosalind is due to threemain causes . First, she only speaks blank verse for afew minutes . Second, she only wears a ski rt for a fewminutes (and the dismal effect o f the change at the endto the wedding-dress ought to convert the stupidestchampion o f petticoats to rational dress ) . Third , she

makes love to the man instead o f waiting for the man tomake love to her—a piece of natural h istory which haskept Shakespeare’s heroines alive

,whilst generations o f

properly governessed young ladies , taught to say“No

”

three times at least,have miserably perished .

119


The performance at the St . James ’s is in some respectsvery good and inno respect very bad or even indifferent .Miss Neilson’s Rosal ind wi l l not bear criticism for amoment ; and yet the total effect is pardonable, and evenpleasant. She bungles speech after speech ; and her attacks o i Miss El len Terry and Mrs . Patrick Campbel lare acute, sudden and numerous ; but her personal charmcarries her through ; and her song is a

‘

great success :besides, who ever fai led, or could fail , as Rosal ind ? MissFay Davis is the best Celia I ever saw , and Miss DorotheaBaird the prettiest Phoebe, though her part is too muchcut to give her any chance of acting. Miss Kate Phill ipsi s an appallingly artificial Audrey ; for, her style beingeither smart or nothing, her conscientious efforts to belumpish land her in the impossible . And then

,what is

that artistical ly metropol itan complexion doing in theForest of Arden ?

Ass as Jaques is , Mr . W . H . Vernon made him moretolerable than I can remember him . Every successiveproduction at the St . James ’s leaves one with a greateradmiration than before for Mr . Vernon ’s talent . Thatservile apostle o f working-class Thri ft and Teetotal ism

(O Wi ll iam Shakespeare , Esquire, you who died drunk ,WHAT'amoral chap you were ! ) hight Adam , was madeabout twenty years too old by Mr . Loraine , who, on theother hand , made a charming point by bidding farewellto the old home with a smile instead o f the conventionaltear . Mr . Fernandez impersonated the banished Dukeas wel l as it is in the nature of Jaques ’s Boswel l to beimpersonated ; Mr . H . B . Irving plays Oliver very muchas anybody else would play Iago, yet with his faults onthe right side : Mr . Vincent retains his lawful speeches

(usual ly purlomed by Jaques ) as the First Lord ; and

120


more timely. The children wi l l find the virtue of Adamand the philosophy of Jaques just the thing for them ;whilst their elders wil l be del ighted by the pageantry andthe wrestl ing.

IBSEN WITHOUT TEARS

12 December, 1896.

ITTLE EYOLF, wh ich began at the Avenue Theatreonly the other day as an artistic forlorn hope ledby Miss Elizabeth Robins , has been promoted

into a ful l-blown fashionable theatrical speculation,with

a “Morocco Bound” syndicate in the background, un

l imited starring and bi ll-posting,and everything complete .

The syndicate promptly set to work to show us howIbsen should real ly

_

be done . They found the wholething wrong from the root up . The silly Ibsen peoplehad put Miss Achurch

,an Ibsenite actress , into the lead

ing part, and Mrs . Patrick Campbel l, a fashionableactress, into a minor one . This was soon set right. MissAchurch was got rid of altogethery and her part transferred to Mrs . Campbell . Miss Robins

,though tainted

with Ibsenism , was retained , but only, I presume, because, having command of the stage-right in the play,she could not be replaced—say by Miss Maude MillettWithout her own consent . The rest of the arrangementsare economical rather than fashionable , the syndicate, toall appearance

,being

,l ike most syndicates , an associa

tion for the purpose of getting money rather than supplying it .

’

122


Mrs . Patrick Camm 1has entered thoroughly into thesp irit o f the alterations . She has seen how unladylike,how disturbing, how ful l o f horror even, the part o f Ri taA llmers is, acted as Miss Achurch acted it . And she hasremedied this with a completeness that leaves noth ing tobe desired—o r perhaps only one th ing. Was there no ta Mr . Arcedeckne who , when Thackeray took to lecturing

,said

,

“Have a piano , Thack” ? Well , Ri ta Allmers

wants a piano . Mrs . Tanqueray had one, and played itso beauti fully that I have been her infatuated slave eversince . There need be no diffi culty about the matter : thebreezy Bo rgheim has only to say ,

“Now that Alfred is

back , Mrs . Allmers, won’t you give us that study for the

left hand we are all so fond o f and there you are .However, even without the piano , Mrs . Campbell succeeded wonderful ly in eliminating all unpleasantnessfrom the play . She looked charming ; and her dresses

were beyond reproach : she carried a mortgage on the“gold and green forests on her back . Her performancewas infinitely reassuring and pretty : its note was,

“You

s illy peOple : what are you making all this fuss about ?The secret o f l i fe is charm and sel f-possession , and nottantrums about drowned ch ildren . The famous line“There stood your champagne ; but you tasted it not ,

”

was no longer a secret o f the alcove,” but a good

humored, mock petulant remonstrance with a man whomthere was no pleasing in the matter o f wine . There wasnot a taste o f nasty j ealousy : this Ri ta tolerated her dearold stupid ’s preoccupation with Asta and Eyolf and h i sbooks as any

'

sens ible (or insens ible ) woman would .

Goodness gracious , I thought, what th ings that ev ilminded Miss Achurch did read into this harmless play !And how nicely Mrs . Campbell took the drowning of the

123


child ! Just a pretty waving o f the fingers,a moderate

scream as if she had very nearly walked on a tin tack,and

it was all over, without tears, without pain, without morefuss than if she had broken the glass of her watch .

At this rate, it was not long before Rita thoroughlygained the sympathy of the audience . We felt that i fshe could only get rid of that ridiculous

,sentimental Asta

(Miss Robins, blind to the object lesson before her, persisted in acting Ibsenitically) , and induce her fussing,sel f-conscious, probably underbred husband not to cryfor spi lt milk, she would be as happy as any lady in theland . Unfortunately, the behavior of Mr . Allmers became more and more intolerable as the second act progressed, though he could not exhaust Rita

’s patient,sli ly

humorous tolerance. As usual , he wanted to knowwhether she would like to go and drown herself ; and thesweet, cool way in which she answered,

“Oh, I don

’tknow, Alfred . No : I think I should have to stay herewith you— a litt-le while” was a lesson to al l wives . Whata contrast to Miss Achurch , who so unnecessarily filledthe stage with the terror of death in this passage ! Thisis what comes of exaggeration

,of over-acting, of for

getting that people go to the theatre to be amused, andnot to be upset ! When Allmers shook h is fist at hisbeautiful wife—O unworthy the name of Briton — andshouted Yon are the guilty one in this,

” her silent dignity overwhelmed him . Nothing could have been in better taste than her description of the pretty way in whichher child had lain in the water when he was drownedhis mother ’s son all over . Al l the pain was taken outof it by the way it was approached .

“I got Borgheim

to go down to the pier with me [so nice o f Borgheim ,

dear “And what,” interrupts the stupid

124


Ibsen is of no use when anything really ladylike iswanted : you might as well put Beethoven to composeChaminades . It is true that no man can look at the newRita without wishing that Heaven had sent him just sucha wife

,whereas the boldest man would hardly have en

vied Allmers the other Rita i f Miss Achurch had allowedhim a moment’s leisure for such impertinent speculations ;but al l the same, the evenings at the Avenue Theatre arelikely to be a l ittle launguid. I had rather look at abeautiful picture than be flogged, as a general thing ; buti f I were offered my choice between looking at the mostbeautiful picture in the world continuously for a fortnight and submitting to , say, a dozen, I think I shouldchoose the flogging . For just the same reason

,i f I had

to choose between seeing Miss Achurch’

s Rita again,with al l its turns of beauty and flashes o f grandeur obl iterated

,and nothing left but its insane j ealousy, its

agonizing horror,its lacerating remorse

,and its mad

dening unrest,the alternative being another two hours ’

contemplation of uneventful feminine fascination as personified by Mrs . Patrick Campbell , I should go like alamb to the slaughter . I prefer Mrs . Campbell ’s Rita toher photograph, because it moves and talks ; but other

x m w ise there is not so much difference as I expected . Mrs .Campbel l , as Magda , could do nothing with a publ icspo iled by Duse . I greatly fear she wil l do even less, asRita, with a publ ic spoiled by Miss Achurch .

The representation generally is considerably affectedin its scale and effect by the change of Ritas . Mr .Courtenay Thorpe

,who, though playing con tutta Ia

forgo, could hardly avoid seeming to underact with MissAchurch , has now considerable difli culty in avoidingoveracting, since he cannot be even earnest and anxious

126


without producing an effect of being good-humoredly

laughed at by Mrs . Campbel l . Miss Robins, as Asta, hasimproved greatly on the genteel misery o f the first night .She has got complete hold of the part ; and although herold fault o f resorting to the lachrymose for all sorts ofpathetic expression produces someth ing o f its old monot

ony, and the voice cl ings to one delicate register unti l theeffect verges on affectation, yet Asta comes out as a

distinct person about whose h istory the audience haslearnt something, and not as an actress del ivering a stringo f l ines and making a number of points more or lesseffectively . The difli culty is that in this cheap editiono f

“Little Eyolf” Asta , instead of being the tranquill izing

element,becomes the centre of disturbance ; so that the

conduct of Allmers in turning for the sake o f peace andquietness from his pretty

,coaxing

,soo thing wife to his

agitated high-strung sister becomes nonsensica l . I

pointed out after the first performance that Miss Robinshad not rea l ly succeeded in making Asta a peacemaker ;but beside MissAchurch she easily seemed gentle , whereasbeside Mrs . Campbell she seems a volcano . It i s onlynecessary to recal l her playing o f the frightful ending tothe first act o f “Alan’s Wife, and compare i t with Mrs .

Campbell ’s finish to the first act o f “Little Eyolf, torealize the preposterousness of thei r relative positions inthe cast . Mrs . Campbell ’s old part of the Ratw ife i s nowplayed by Miss Florence Farr. Miss Farr deserves morepubl ic sympathy than any of the other Ibsenite actresses ;for they have only damaged themselves professionallyby appearing in Ibsen’s plays

,whereas Miss Farr has

compl icated her difficulties by appearing in mine as well .Further , instead of either devoting hersel f to the mostpersonally exacting of al l the arts or else letting it alone,

127


Miss Farr has written clever novels and erudite workson Babylonish lore ; has managed a theatre capably fora season ; and has only occasionally acted . For an oc

casional actress she has been rather successful once or

twice in producing singular effects in singular parts— herRebecca in “

Rosmersholm” was remarkable and promis

ing— but she has not pursued her art with sufficient constancy to attain any authoritative power of carrying out

her conceptions , which are, besides, only skin deep . HerRatw ife i s a favorable example of her power o f producinga certain strangeness of effect ; but it is somewhat discounted by want of sustained grip in the execution . MissFarr will perhaps remedy this i f she can find time enoughto spare from her other interests to attend to it. The

rest of the cast is as before . One has no longer any realbel ief in the drowning of Master Stewart Dawson, thanksto the gentle method of Mrs . Campbell . Mr . Lowne ’ssensible

,healthy superiority to al l this morbid Ibsen stuff

is greatly reinforced now that Rita takes things nicelyand easily .

I cannot help thinking it a great pity that the Avenueenterprise, j ust as it seemed to be capturing that afternoon classical concert publ ic to which I have alwayslooked for the regeneration o f the classical drama,should have paid the penalty of its success by the usualevolution into what is evidently half a timid speculationin a “catch-on,

” and hal f an attempt to slacken the rateat which the Avenue Theatre is eating its head off inrent. That evolution of course at once found out theutter incoherence o f the enterprise . The original production

,undertaken largely at Miss Robins’s individual

risk,was for the benefit of a vaguely announced Fund,

as to the constitution and purpose o f which no informa

128


a star as Mrs . Patrick Campbel l on a smal l part thatcould be filled for a few pounds

,when they could trans

fer her to the leading part and save Miss Achurch ’

s sal

ary . I f they could have substituted an inferior artistfor Miss Robins , they could have effected a stil l furthersaving, relying onMrs . Pat to draw ful l houses ; but thatwas made impossible by Miss Robins’s power over thestage-right . Consequently, the only sufferer was MissAchurch but it is impossible for Miss Robins and Mrs .Campbel l not to feel that the same thing might have happened to them if there had been no stage- right

,and i f

the syndicate had real ized that, when it comes to Ibsen ,Miss Achurch is a surer card to play than Mrs . Campbell .Under these circumstances, what likelihood is thereof the experiment being resumed or repeated on its oldbasis ? Miss Robins will probably think twice beforeshe creates Mariana without some security that, i f she

succeeds , the part wi ll not immediately be handed overto Miss Winifred Emery or Miss Jul ia Neilson . MissAchurch

,triumphantly as she has come out of the com

parisonwith her successor, i s not l ikely to forget herlesson . Mrs . Campbell ’s willingness to enlist in forlornhopes in the humblest capacity may not improbably bereceived in future as Laocoon received the offer of thewooden horse . I do not presume to meddle in the affairso f al l these actors and authors , patrons and enthusiasts ,subscribers and guarantors

,though this is quite as much

my business as theirs ; but a fter some years’ intimate

experience of the results o f unorganized Ibsenism,

’

I

venture to suggest that it would be wel l to have someequitable form of theatrical organization ready to dealwith Ibsen’s new play, on the translation of which Mr.

Archer is already at work.

130

RICHARD HIMSELF AGAIN

Richard III. Lyceum Theatre, 19 December, 1896.

HE world being yet little better than a misch ievousschoolboy, I am afraid it cannot be denied that“Punch and Judy” holds the field stil l as the

most popular o f dramatic entertainments . And o f all

its versions , except those which are quite above the heado f the man in the street, Shakespeare

’

s “Richard I II .i s the best . It has abundant deviltry , humor , and character

,presented with luxuriant energy o f diction in the

simplest form of blank verse . Shakespeare revels in i twith just the sort of artistic unconscionableness thatfits the theme . Richard is the prince o f Punches ; hedelights Man by provoking God, and dies unrepentant

and game to the last. His incongruous conventional appendages , such as the Punch hump, the conscience , thefear of ghosts , all impart a Spice o f outrageousnesswhich leaves nothing lacking to the fun of the enter

tainment , except the solemnity o f those spectators whofeel bound to take the affair as a profound and subtleh istoric study .

V

Punch , whether as Jingle, Macaire , Meph istopheles ,or Richard, has always been a favorite part with SirHenry Irving. The crafti ly mischievous , the sardonicallyimpudent , tickle him immensely, besides providing himwith a welcome relief from the gravi ty of his serious

impersonations . As Richard he drops Punch after thecoronation scene , which , in deference to stage tradition ,he makes a turning-point at which the virtuoso in misch ief, having ach ieved h is ambition, becomes a savage

131

Dramat ic Opinions and E ssays

at bay. I do not see why this should be . In the tentscene, Richard says :

There is no creature loves me ,

And if I die no soul w ill pity me.

Macbeth repeats this patch o f pathos, and immediatelyproceeds to pity himself unstintedly over it ; but Richardno sooner catches the sentimental cadence o f his ownvoice than the mocker in him is awakened at once, andhe adds, quite in Punch

’s vein,

Nay, w herefore should they ? since that I myselfFind in myself no pity for myself.”

S ir Henry Irving omits these l ines , because he plays , ashe always does , for a pathetical ly subl ime ending. But

we have seen the subl ime ending before pretty often ;and this time it robs us of such strokes as Richard ’saristocratically cynical private encouragement to his en

tourage o f peers

Our strong arms be our conscience, sw ords our law .

March on; j oin brav’

ely ; let us to’t pell-mell,If not to H eaven, then hand in hand to hell .

followed by his amusingly blackguardly publi c addressto the rank and file ,a\uite in the vein of the famous andmore successful appeal to the British troops in the Peninsula .

“Wi l l you that are Engl ishmen fed on beef letyourselves be l icked l ike a lot o f Spaniards fed on

oranges ?” Despair, one feels , could bring to PunchRichard nothing but the exultation o f one who loved destruction better than even victory ; and the exclamation

A thousand hearts are great w ithin.

my bosom

132


what zw e .call a one man show . Shakespeare,having

no. .room in a play so full of action for more than one

real . part, surrounded it with figures whose historic titlesand splendid dresses , helped by a .l ine or two at theright .moment, impose on our imagination sufficiently tomake us see the w hole Court of Edward IV. If Hastings, Stanley, the

“j ockey of . Norfolk,” the deep re

volving witty Buckingham, and the rest, only bear themselves with sufficient address not to absolutely contradictthe dramatist’s suggestion of them,

' the audience wil l

receive enough impression o f their real ity, and even of

their importance, to give Ri chard an air of mov ing in aCourt as the King’s brother . But Cibber could not bear“that any one on the stage should have an air o f importance except himself : i f the subordinate members of thecompany could not act so well as he, i t seemed to him ,

not'that it was his business as the presenter of a playto conceal their deficiencies, but that the first principleso f j ustice and fair .dealing demanded . before all thingsthat his superiori ty should be made evident to the public.

(And there are not half a dozen leading actors on thestage to-day who would not take precisely that view o f

the situation .) Consequently he handled Richard III .”

so as to make every other actor in it obviously ridiculousand insignificant, except only that Henry VI . , in the firstact , ,was al lowed to w in the pity of the audience in orderthat the effect might be the greater when Richard stabbedhim . No actor could have produced more completely,exactly, and forcibly the effect aimed at by Cibber thanBarry Sul l ivan, the one actor who kept Cibber

’

s Richardon the stage during the present half-century. But itwas an exhibition, not a play. Barry Sull ivan was ful lof force, and very clever : i f his powers had been ,

less

IS4


exclusively of the infernal order, or i f he had devotedhimself to the drama instead of devoting the drama tohimsel f as a mere means o f sel f-assertion , one might havesaid more for him . He managed to make the audiencebelieve in Richard ; but as he could not make it believein the others

,and probably did not want to, they de

stroyed the i llusion almost as fast as he created it . Thisis why Cibber

’

s Richard though it i s so s imple that thecharacter plays itsel f as unmistakably as the blank verse

speaks itsel f,can only be made endurable by an actor

of exceptional personal force . The second and third actsat the Lyceum , with thei r atmosphere of Court factionand their presentation before the audience of Edward

and Clarence, make all the difference between the twoversions .But the Lyceum has by no means emancipated itselffrom superstition—even gross superstition . Italian operaitself could go no further in folly than the exhibition ofa pretty and popular young actress in tights as Prince

Edward . No doubt w e were glad to see Miss Lena Ash

wel l— for the matter of that we should have been gladto see Mrs . John Wood as the other prince— but fromthe moment she came on the stage all serious h istoricalil lusion necessarily vanished, and was replaced by themost extreme form o f theatrical convention . ProbablySir Henry Irv ing cast Miss Ashwel l for the part because he has not followed her career since she playedElaine in “King Arthur.” She was then weak

,timid

,

subordinate, with an insignificant presence and a voicewhich, contrasted as it was with Miss Terry

’s,could

only be described— if one had the heart to do it— as asquaw l . Since then she has developed precipitously . I fany sort o f success had been possible for the plays in

I35


which she has appeared this year at the Duke of York’sand Shaftesbury Theatres , she would have received alarge share of the credit of it . Even in “Carmen

,

” when,

perhaps for the sake of auld lang syne, she squaw led and

stood on the tips of her heels for the last time ( let ushope ) , her scene with the dragoon in the first act wasthe one memorable moment in the whole of that disastrous business . She now returns to the Lyceum stageas an actress of mark, strong in womanly charm ,

andnot in the least the sort of person whose sex is so l ittleemphasized that it can be hidden by a doublet and hose .You might as well put forward Miss Ada Rehan as aboy. Nothing can be more absurd than the spectacle o fSir Henry Irving elaborately playing the uncle to hisl ittle nephew when he is obviously addressing a fineyoung woman in rational dress who is very thoroughlyher own mistress , and treads the boards with no l ittleauthority and assurance as one of the younger generation knocking vigorously at the door . Miss Ashwel lmakes short work of the sleepiness o f the Lyceum andthough I take urgent exception to her latest technicaltheory

,which is

,that the bridge o f the nose is the seat

o f facial expression, I admit that she does all that canhe

'

done to reconci le us to the burlesque o f her appearance in a part that should have been played by a boy.

Another mistake in the casting of the play was Mr .Gordon Craig’s Edward IV. As Henry VI . , Mr . Craig,who wasted his del icacy on the wrong part, would havebeen perfect . Henry not being avai lable , he might haveplayed Richmond with a considerable air o f being a youngHenry VII . But as Edward he was incredible : one feltthat Richard would have had him out o f the way years

ago if Margaret had not saved him the trouble by van

36


as if 'a man could be run through as easi ly as a cuttle-fish ,

was neither credible nor impressive . The attempt to makea stage combat look as imposing as H az litt ’s descriptionof the death o f Edmund Kean’s Richard reads

,is hope

less . If Kean were to return to li fe and do the combat

for us, we should very likely find it as absurd as his habitof lying down on a sofa when he was too tired or too

drunk to keep his feet during the final scenes .Further, it seems to me that Sir Henry Irving

’

should

either cast the play to suit his acting or else modify his

acting to suit the cast. His playing,in the scene with

Lady Anne—which, though a Punch scene, is Punch onthe Don Giovanni” plane—was a flat contradiction

, not

only of the letter o f the lines , but of their spirit and feeling as conveyed unmistakably by their cadence . This,however, we are used to : Sir Henry Irving never didand never will make use o f a play otherwise than as avehicle for some fantastic creation of his own. But i f

we are not to have the tears , the passion, the tenderness,the transport of dissimulation which alone can make theupshot credible—if the woman is to be openly teased and.

insulted,mocked, and disgusted , al l through the scene

as well as in the first “keen encounter of their wits ,”

why not have Lady Anne presented as a weak, childishwitted

,mesmerized creature

,instead o f as that most awful

embodiment o f virtue and decorum , the intel lectual American lady ? Poor Miss Julia Arthur honestly did her bestto act the part as she found it in Shakespeare ; and ifRichard had done the same she would have come o ff

with credit. But how could she play to a Richard whowould not utter . a single tone to which any woman ’sheart could respond ? She could not very well box the

138


actor-manager ’s ears, and walk off ; but really she de

serves some credit for refraining from that extreme remedy . She partly had her revenge when she left the ‘

stage ;

for Richard , after playing the scene with - her as i f hewere a H ounsditch salesman cheating a factory girl overa pair o f second-hand stockings, naturally could not reachthe raptures of the tremendous outburst of elation beginning

Was ever w oman in this humor wooed?Was ever w oman in this humor won? ”

One felt incl ined to answer, Never, I assure you, andmake an end of the scene there and then . I am preparedto admit that the creations o f Sir Henry Irving

’s imagination are sometimes—in the case o f his Iachimo, forexample—better than those of the dramatists whom heis supposed to interpret . B ut what he did in th is scene ,as wel l as ‘

in the opening soliloquy, was child’s play com

pared to what Shakespeare meant him to do .

The rest of the performance was—well , it was LyceumShakespeare . Miss Genevieve Ward was, o f course , avery capable Margaret ; but she missed the one touchstone passage in a very easy part —the tenderness o f t heappeal to Buckingham . Mr . Macklin, equally of course ,had no trouble with Buckingham ; but he did not giveus that moment wh ich makes Richard say

None are for me

That look into me w ith considerate eyes.

Messrs . Norman Forbes and W . Farren ( junior ) playedthe

'

murderers in the true Shakespearean manner : that

is, as i f they had come straight out of the pant omime o f“The Babes in the Wood” ; and Clarence recited his dream

139


as if he were an elocutionary coroner summing up . Therest were respectably dull, except Mr . Gordon Craig,Miss Lena Ashwell , and, in a page

’s part,Miss Edith

Craig, the only member of the company before whomthe manager visibly quails .

BETTER THAN SHAKESPEARE

The Pilgrim’

s Progress : a mystery play, w ithmusic, in four acts, by G. G. Collingham ; foundedon John Bunyan’s immortal allegory. OlympicTheatre, 24 December, 1896.

HEN I saw a stage version of The Pilgrim ’sProgress” announced for production

,I

shook my head , knowing that Bunyan is fartoo great a dramatist for our theatre , which has neverbeen resolute enough even in its lewdness and venal ity towin the respect and interest which positive , powerfulwickedness always engages , much less the services ofmen of heroic conviction . Its greatest catch, Shakespeare , wrote for the theatre because , with extraordinaryartistic powers , he understood nothing and believed nothing. Thirty-six big plays in five blank verse acts , and

(as Mr . Ruskin , I think, once pointed out) not a singlehero ! Only one man in them al l who bel ieves in l ife,enjoys li fe

,thinks l i fe worth l iving, and has a sincere ,

unrhetorical tear dropped over his deathbed , and thatman— Falstaff What a crew they are— these Saturdayto Monday athletic stockbroker Orlandos , these villains,

140


it was to Shakespeare ; - but he saw through it a path atthe end o f which a man might look not only forward tothe Celestial City , but back on his li fe and say

—“Tho’

with great difli culty I am got hither, yet now I do notrepent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive whereI am . My sword I give to him that shal l succeed me inmy pilgrimage , and my courage and ‘skill to him thatcan get them .

” The heart vibrates l ike. a bell to such anutterance as this : to turn from it to “

Out , out, briefcandle,

” and “The rest is silence,” and “We are such stuff

as dreams are made on; and‘our little life is rounded by a

sleep” is to turn from life,‘

strength, resolution, morningair and eternal y outh, to the terrors of a drunken nightmare .Let us descend now to t he lower ground whereShakespeare is not disabled by this inferiority in energyand elevation o f

‘ spirit. Take one of his big fightingscenes

,and compare its blank verse, in point of mere

rhetorical strenuousness, with Bunyan’s prose . Mac

beth’s famous cue for the fight with Macduff runs thus

Yet I w ill try the last : before my bodyI throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macdufl ,

And damned be him that first cries Ho ld, enough !”

Turn from this j ingle, dramatically right in feeling, butsi l ly and resourceless in thought and expression, to

Apollyon’

s cue for the fight in the Valley of Humiliation :“I am void of fear in this matter. Prepare thysel f to die ;for I swear by my infernal

'

den that -thou‘

shalt go no

farther : here will I spill thy soul .” This is the samething done masterly. Apart from its superior grandeur,force, and appropriateness, it i s better clap-trap and infinitely better w ord-music .


Shakespeare , fond as he is of describing fights , hashardly ever sufficient energy or real i ty o f imagination

to finish without betraying the paper origin o f his fanciesby dragging in something classical in the style of theCyclops ’ hammer fall ing on Mar’s armor

,forged for

proof eterne .” Hear how Bunyan does it : “I foughttill my sword did cleave to my hand ; and when they werejoined together as i f the sword grew out of my arm ;

and when the blood runthorow my fingers , then I foughtwith most courage .

” Nowhere in all Shakespeare is there

a touch l ike that of the blood running down through theman ’s fingers , and hi s courage rising to passion at it .

Even in mere technical adaptation to the art o f the actor ,Bunyan ’s dramatic speeches are as good as Shakespeare

’stirades . Only a trained dramatic speaker can appreciatethe terse manageableness and eff ect iveness of such aspeech as this , with its grandiose exordium , followed upby its pointed question and its stern threat : “By th is Iperceive thou art one of my

‘

subjects ; for all that countryis mine , and I am the Prince and the God o f it . H ow i si t then that thou hast ran away from thy King ? Were itnot that I hope thou mayst do me more serv ice , I wouldstrike thee now at one blow to the ground .

” Here thereis no raving and swearing and rhyming and classicalallusion . The sentences go straight to thei r mark ; andtheir concluding phrases soar like the sunri se

, or“ swing

and drop like a hammer, just as the actor wants them .

I might multiply these instances by the dozen ; but Ihad rather leave dramatic students to compare the tw oauthors at first-hand. In an article on Bunyan latelypublished in the “Contemporary Review”—the only article worth reading on the subj ect I ever saw (yes , thankyou ; I » am quite familiar with Macaulay’s patronizing

143


prattle about The Pilgrim’s Progress”) —Mr. RichardHeath, the historian of the Anabaptists

,shows how

Bunyan learnt his lesson , not only from his own roughpilgrimage through life, but from the tradition of manyan actual j ourney from real Cities of Destruction (underAlva ) , with Interpreters

’ houses and convey of Greathearts al l complete . Against such a man what chancehad our poor immortal Wi ll iam

,with his “l ittle Latin”

(would it had been less , l ike his Greek l) , his heathenmythology, his Plutarch , his Bocaccio, his Hol inshed , hiscircle of London

.

l iterary wits,soddening their minds

with books and their nerves with alcohol (quite l ike us ) ,and al l the rest of his Strand and Fleet Street surroundings , activities , and interests , social and professional ,mentionable and unmentionable ? Let us applaud him ,

in due measure,in that he came out of it no blackguardly

Bohemian,but a thoroughly respectable snob ; raised the

desperation and cynicism of its outlook to something l ikesubl imity in his tragedies ; dramatized its morbid , selfcentered passions and its feeble and shallow speculationswith al l the force that was in them ; disinfected it bycopious doses of romantic poetry, fun , and common-sense ;and gave to its perpetual sex-obsession the rel ief o f individual character and feminine winsomeness . Also— iiyou are a sufficiently good Whig— that after incarnatingthe spirit of the whole epoch which began with the six

teenth century and is ending ( I hope ) with the nine

teenth ,he is still the idol of all wel l-read children . But

as he never thought a noble l i fe worth l iving or a greatwork worth doing

,because the commercial profit-and- loss

sheet showed that the one did not bring happiness nor theother money

,he never struck the great vein—the vein in

which Bunyan told o f that “man of a very stout counte

144


School teachers who cannot .keep from drinking andgambling, though they believe in teetotalism and longto be the most respectable men in the parish . I cannotconceive how such a creature can charm the imagination

of Miss Marie Corel li . It wi ll be admitted that she i snot easy to please when fashionable women and j ournalists are in question . Then why let the devil off so

cheaply ?

Let me not , however, dismiss The Sorrows of Satantoo cavalierly ; for I take Miss Marie Corel l i to be oneof the most sincere and independent writers at presentbefore the public; Early in 1886, when she made hermark for the first time with “A Romance o f Tw o

Worlds ,”she took her stand boldly as the apostle o f ro

mantic rel igion .

“Believe, she said,“in anything or

everyth ing m1raculous and glorious—the utmost reachof your faith can with difficulty grasp the maj estic realityand perfection-o f everything you can see, desire, or imagine.” Here w e have that sure mark of romantic religion—the glorification of the miraculous . Again,

“walkingon the sea can. be accomplished now by anyone who has

cultivated sufficient inner force .” Two years later,“A

Romance of Two Worlds” was prefaced by a l ist of testimonials from persons w ho had found salvation in the“Electric Chri stianity” of the novel . Lest any one shouldsuppose that “Electric Christianity was a fictitious re

ligion, Miss Corelli took the opportunity to say o f it,“Its tenets are completely borne out by the New Testament, which . sacred little book [ital ics mine ] , however,has much of its mystical and true meaning obscured nowadays through the indifference of those who read and

the apathy o f those who hear. My creed has

its foundation in Christ alone only Christ,

146


only the oldold story of Divine love and sacrifice .

The proof of the theories set forth in the Romance is, asI have stated, easily to be found in the New Testament.

I merely endeavored to slightly shadow forththe miraculous powers which I know are bestowed on

those who truly love and understand the teachings of

Christ .” The miraculous powers , I may mention , included making trips round the

'

so lar system , l iving forever, seeming to improvise on the pianoforte by playingat the dictation o f angels, knocking people down with

electric shocks at will and without apparatus, paintingpictures in luminous paint, and cognate marvels . When

I say that Miss Corel li is sincere , I o f course do not mean

that she has ever acted on the assumption that her “re

ligion is real . But when she takes up her pen, she

imagines it to be real, because she has a prodigiously

copious and fluent imagination, without, as far as I havebeen able to ascertain , the knowledge, the training, theobservat ion, the critical faculty, the humor, or any otherof the acquirements and qualities which compel ordinarypeople to distinguish in some measure (and in some

measure only ; for the best o f us is not wholly un-Corel

lian ) between what they may sanely believe and whatthey would l ike to believe. Great works in fiction are thearduous victories of great minds over great imaginations :Miss Corelli’s works are the cheap victories o f a profus eimagination over an apparently commonplace and carelessly cultivated mind . The story o f the Passion in theNew Testament not being imaginative enough for her,and quite superfluously thoughtful and real istic, she re

wrote it to her taste ; and the huge circulation o f her ver

sion shows that , to the mi nds o f her readers , she consid

erably, improved it . Having made th is success with the

147

Dramat ic Opinions and Essays“Barabbas, she next turned her attention toking al l the meaning out o f him ,

but lavishingimagination on him until he shone al l over with stagefire . I do not complain of the process : I neither grudgeMiss Corell i to her disciples nor her disciples to MissCorelli but I must warn my readers that nothing that Ihave to say about the play must be taken as implying thatit is possible, real , or philosophically coherent.Let me now come down’ from my high horse, and takethe play on its own ground . The romantic imaginationis the most unoriginative, uncreative faculty in theworld, an original romance being simply an old situationshown from a new point of view . A s JohnGabriel Borkman says ,

“the eye , born anew ,transforms the o ld

action .

” Miss Corelli’s eye, not having been born anew,

transforms nothing. Only , i t was born recently enoughtohave fallen on the music dramas o f Wagner ; and justas she gave us, in

“Thelma,” a version o f t he scene in

“Die Walkiire” where Brynhild warns Siegmund o f his

approaching death, so in “The Sorrows o f Satan” shereproduces V anderdecken, the man whose sentence o f

damnation wi l l be cancel led if he can find one soul faithful to the death . Wagner ’s V anderdecken i s redeemedby a woman ; but Miss Corel li , belonging to that sex her‘self, knows better, and makes the redeemer a man . I am

bound to say that after the most attentive study of theperformance I am unable to report the logical connexionbetween the drowning o f Geoff rey Tempest in the shipwreck o f Satan-V anderdecken-Rimanez ’ yacht in the Antarctic circle

,

‘

and - the immediate ascension to heaven o f

Satan in a suit of armor ; but I have no doubt it is ex:plained in the novel : at al l events , the situation at theendof the “Flying Dutchman,

” with the ship sinking, and

148


street. All the same, the more completely a painter canmake us overlook that objection the better . Miss Corelli is apt to forget this . The introduction of a devi lin footrnan’s livery passed off excellently ; but when hesubsequently turned his hand to steering the yacht

,and

adopted a cardinal ’s costume as the most convenient forthat duty, I confess I began to real ize what a chance themanagement lost in not securing Mr . Harry Nichol ls forthat part. The young nobleman who played baccarat soprodigal ly did not shatter my i llusions until he suddenlystaked his soul, at which point I missed Meyerbeer

’s“Robert le Diable” music rather badly. On the otherhand, I have no objection whatever to Satan, after elaborately disguising himself as a modern chevalier d

’

indus

trie, giving himself away by occasional flashes of l ightning. Without them the audience would not know thathe was the devil : besides , i t reminds one of EdmundKean .

These, however, are trifles : any play can be ridiculedby simply refusing to accept its descriptive conventions .But, as I have said, a play need not be moral ly absurd .

Real li fe,in spite of the efforts of States , Churches , and

individuals to reduce its haphazards to order, is moral lyabsurd for the most part : Prometheus gains but l ittleon Jupiter ; and his defeats are the staple o f tragedy .

It is the privilege of the drama to make l i fe intelligible ,at least hypothetically

,by introducing moral design into

it,even i f that design be only to show that moral design

is an i llusion, a demonstration which cannot be madewithout some counter-demonstration of the laws of l i fewith which it clashes . I f the dramatist repudiates moralinterest, and elects to depend onhumor, sensuousness and

romance, all the more must he accept the moral conven

50


tions which have become normal on the stage . Now MissCorelli has flatly no humor—positively none at all . Sheis, in a very bookish way , abundantly sensuous and ro

mantic ; but she vehemently repudiates the conventionalmoral basis

,professing, for instance , a loathing for the

normal course of fashionable soc iety, with its marriagemarket, its

‘

spiri tual callousness,and its hunt for pleas

ure and money . But i f Miss Corell i did not hersel f l ivein the idlest o f all worlds , the world o f dreams and books

( so idle that people do not even learn to ride and shootand sin in it ) , she would know that it is vain to protestagainst a necessary institution , however corrupt , unti l

you have an efficient and convincing substitute ready .

Electric Christianity” ( symbol ized in the play by Satan’s

flashes o f l ightning) will not convince anybody with areasonablely hard head on his or her shoulders that itis an efficient substitute even for the morals of Mayfair .

The play is morally absurd from beginning to end . Satanis represented , not as the enemy o f God, but as his victim and moral superior : nevertheless he worships Godand is rewarded by reconciliation with him . He is neitherLuci fer nor Prometheus

,but a sham revolutionist bidding

for a seat in the Cabinet . Lady Sybi l i s stigmatized as a“wanton” because she marries for money ; but the manwho buys her in the marriage market quite openly byoffering to take “The Hal l

, Willow smere ,” i f she willmarry him , as a set-o ff to the disagreeableness o f l ivingwith a man she does not care for , not only passes withoutreproach , and i s permitted to strike virtuous atti tudes ather expense , but actually has his death accepted as asufficient atonement to redeem the devi l . Please observethat he i s thereby placed above Christ, whose atonementand resistance to the temptation in the desert were inef

151


fectual as far as Satan was concerned . At the same timewe are permitted to take to our bosoms an American girl

,

because, to grati fy her Poppa’s love of a title without

forfeiting her own self-respect, she has heroically refuseda si lly young Duke and married a venal old Earl . Further, the parade of contempt for wealth and fashion isaccompanied by the rigid exclusion o f al l second-class

,

poor or lowly persons from the play except in the capacity o f servants . The male characters are a Prince

,a

millionaire, an Earl , a Viscount, a Duke, and a Baronet,with their servants , two caricatured sol icitors and a publisher be ing introduced for a moment to be laughed atfor their vulgarity . The feminine side is supplied byLady Sybil , Lady Mary, Miss Charlotte Fitzroy (who,lest her name should fail to inspire awe

,is careful ly in

troduced as “Lord Elton’s sister- in a millionairess,

a Duchess, one vulgar but only momentary landlady , andMavis Clare . Mavis Clare might be Miss Corel l i hersel f,so haughtily does she scorn the m inlons o f fashion andworms of the hour (as Silas Wegg put it ) who provideher with the only society she seems to care for .

The adaptation from Miss Corelli’s novel has beenmade by Messrs . Herbert Woodgate and Paul Berton .

I nevertheless hold Miss Corell i responsible for it . Sheis quite as capable of dramatizing her novels as any one

who is l ikely to save her the trouble ; and a little workin this direction would do her no harm . A good dealof the dialogue is redundant, slovenly, and ful l o f reachme-down phrases whiCh vulgarize every scene in whichthe author has not been stirred up by strong feel ing.

Most of the critics of whose hostil ity Miss Corell i complains so bitterly could teach her to double the distinctiono f her style in ten lessons . No doubt she could return

152


iar charm in addition to the accomplishments which one

expects as a matter of course from Pierrots . Rossi ’sPochinet, in a rougher way, is also excellent.

THE NEW IBSEN PLAY

John Gabriel Borkman: a play in four acts. ByH enrik Ibsen. Translated by William A rcher. Lon

don: H einemann. 1897.

HE appearance some weeks ago in these columnsof a review of the original Norwegian edition ofIbsen’s new play,

“John Gabriel Borkman,” re

lieves me from repeating here what I have said elsewhereconcerning Mr . Wil l iam Archer ’s Engl ish version . Infact

,the time for reviewing it has gone by : all who care

about Ibsen have by this time pounced on the new volume,and ascertained for themselves what it is l ike . The onlypoint worth discussing now is the play’s chances of performance .

Everybody knows what happened to Little Eyolf.

None of our managers would touch it ; and it was notunti l the situation w as made .

very pressing indeed by theadvent of the proof-sheets o f its successor that it was

produced . As it happened , a certain section o f the publ ic—much the same section

,I take it

,as that which supplies

the audiences for our orchestral concerts— j umped at theopportunity ; and the experiment, in its original modesty ,proved handsomely remunerative . Then commercial enterprise, always dreaming of

“catches-ou ,

” long runs ,and “silver mines,

” attempted to exploit the occasion in

154


the usual way, and of course made an inglorious mess ofi t. A fashionable run of one of Ibsen’s dramatic studies

of modern society is about as feasible as a fashionablerun of Beethoven ’s posthumous quartets . A late Ibsenplay wi ll not bring in twenty thousand pounds : i t willonly bring in fi fteen hundred or tw o thousand. On theother hand, the play which may bring in twenty thousandpounds also may, and in nine cases out of ten does , bringin less than half its very heavy expenses ; whereas theexpenses of an Ibsen play, including a rate of profit forthe entrepreneur which would be considered handsomein any ordinary non-speculative business

,can be kept

wel l within its practical ly certain returns , not to mentiona high degree o f artistic credit and satisfaction to all concerned . Under these circumstances it can hardly be contended that Ibsen ’s plays are not worth producing. Inlegitimate theatrical business Ibsen is as sa fe and profitable as Beethoven and Wagner in legi timate musicalbusiness .

Then , it wi ll be asked , why do not the syndicates andmanagers take up Ibsen ? As to the syndicates , the answer is simple . Enterprises with prospects limited to aprofit of a few hundred pounds on a capital of a thousanddo not require syndicates to finance them . An energeticindividual enthusiast and a subscription can get over thebusiness diffi culties . The formation o f a wealthy syndicate to produce a Little Eyolf

” would be like the promotion of a joint-stock company to sweep a crossing.

As to the managers , there are various reasons . First,there is the inevitable snobbery of the fashionable actormanager ’s position , which makes him ashamed to producea play without spending more on the stage mountingalone than an Ibsen play wil l bring in . Second , our

155


managers , having for the most part only a dealer’s knowl

edge of art, cannot appreciate a new line of goods .It is clear that the first obj ection will have to be gotover somehow . I f every manager considers it due to himsel f to produce nothing cheaper than

“The Prisoner ofZenda,

” not to mention the splendors of the Lyceum,then

good-bye to high dramatic art . The managers wi ll ,perhaps, retort that i f high dramatic art means Ibsen, then they ask for nothing better than to get rid of

i t . I am too pol ite to reply, bluntly, that high dramaticart does mean Ibsen ; that Ibsen

’s plays are at this momentthe head of the dramatic body ; and that though an actormanager can, and often does , do without a head, dramaticart cannot. Already Ibsen is a European power : thisnew play has been awaited for two years , and is nowbeing discussed and assimi lated into the consciousness ofthe age with an interest which no pol itical or pontificalutterance can command . Wagner himsel f did not attainsuch a position during his l i fetime

,because he was re

garded merely as a musician—much the same thing asregarding Shakespeare merely as a grammarian . Ibsenis translated promptly enough nowadays ; yet no matterhow rapidly the translation comes on the heel of the original , newspapers cannot wait for it : detailed accountsbased on the Norwegian text

,and even on stolen gl impses

o f the proof-sheets , fly through the world fromcolumnto column as i f the play were an Anglo-American arbitration treaty. Sometimes a fool ish actor informs the publicthat Ibsen is a noisome nuisance . The publ ic instantlyloses whatever respect it may previously have had, notonly for that foolish actor ’s critical Opinion, but for hisgood sense . But i f Ibsen were to visit London , and express his Opinion o f our Engl ish theatre—as Wagner ex

156


garded as fairly due by this time . The play which standsout among his works as an ideal Lyceum piece,

“ThePretenders, was his tenth play ; and yet it was writtenthirty-four years ago .

“Peer Gynt” is over thirty . Why,even “A Dol l ’s House is eighteen years old . These figures are significant, because there is an enormous di fference between the effect o f Ibsen’s ideas on his owncontempo raries and on those who might be his sons andgrandsons . Take my own case . I am a middle-aged, oldfashioned person . But I was only two years old when“The Vikings at Helgeland” was written . Now , considering that

“Little Eyolf,” written only a couple of years

ago, already attracts an audience sufficiently numerous topay for its production with a handsome l ittle profit, is itto be believed that playgoers from ten to twenty .yearsyounger than I am are not yet ready for at least the greatspectacular dramas, charged with romantic, grandeur andrel igious sentiment, which Ibsen wrote between 1855 (thedate of “Lady Inger”) and 1866 ( the date o f PeerGynt”)But alas ! our managers are older in their ideas thanIbsen’s grandmother . It is Sir Henry Irving’s business ,as the offi cial head of his profession— ti t l

’

as voulu,

Georges Dandih—to keep before us the noble side of thatmovement in dramatic art o f which “The Sign of theCross” and “The Sorrows o f Satan” are the cheap andpopular manifestations . But how can he bring his transfigurations and fantasies to bear on the real ities o f themodern school ? They have no more to do with Ibsenthan with Shakespeare or any other author save onlyHenry Irving himsel f. His theatre is not real ly a theatreat all : an accident has j ust demonstrated that nobody wi llgo there to see a play, especial ly a play by ShakeSpeare !

158


They go only to see Sir Henry Irving or Miss EllenTerry . When he sprains his knee and Miss Terry fl iessouth

,leaving only Shakespeare and the Lyceum com

pany—O that company —in possession, the theatre becomes a desert : Shakespeare will not pay for gas enoughto see him by . Back comes Miss Terry ; up goes Shakespeare

,Wills

,Sardou, anybody ; the public rallies ; and

by the time the sprain is cured, all will be well . No : theLyceum is incorrigible : its debt to modern dramatic arti s now too far in arrear ever to be paid . After all, why,after inventing a distinct genre of art, and an undeniablyfascinating one at that, should Sir Henry Irving nowplace himself at the di sposition o f Ibsen, and become theExponent of Another on the stage wh ich he has h i thertotrodden as the Sel f-Expounded ? Why should MissTerry, whom we have adored under all sorts of delicious ,nonsensical disguises , loving especially those which madeher most hersel f, turn mere actress , and be trans formedby Norwegian enchantments into an embodiment of thoseinmost reproaches o f conscience which w e now go to the

Lyceum to forget ? It is all very well for Mr. Walkleyto point out that Sir Henry Irving

,Miss Ellen Terry and

Miss Genevi eve Ward would exactly suit the parts of

Borkman, El la and Gunh ild in the new play ; but what

Sir Henry Irving wants to know is not whether he wouldsuit the part, since he has good reason to consider himselfactor enough to be able to suit many parts not worth hisplaying, but whether the part would suit him ,

wh ich isquite another affair. That is the true centripetal forcethat keeps Ibsen off the stage .

Unfortunately, when we give up the Lyceum, w e giveup the only theatre of classic pretehsions, officially recogniz ed as such, in London . Mr. Oscar Barrett, when

I59


the details of his next pantomime are disposed of, mightconceivably try one of the big spectacular Ibsen plays atDrury Lane ; but the experiment would be more of a newdeparture for him and for the theatre than for Sir HenryIrving and the Lyceum . Mr . Wyndham acts better thananybody else ; he makes his company act better than anyother company— so well that they occasional ly act himo ff his own stage for months together ; and he has notonly the cleverness of the successful actor-manager

,which

is seldom more than the craft o f an ordinary brain stimulated to the utmost by an overwhelming professionalinstinct, but the genuine abil ity o f a good head, avai lablefor al l purposes . But the pre-Ibsenite drama, played ashe plays it, wil l last Mr . Wyndham ’s time ; and the publ icmind sti ll copes with the Ibsenite view o f l i fe too slowlyand clumsi ly for the Criterion . The most humorous passages o i Ibsen’s work— three- fourths o f

“The WildDuck

,for instance— sti l l seem to the publ ic as puzz ling,

humil iating,and disconcerting as a joke always does to

people who cannot see it . Comedy must be instantly andvividly intel l igible or it is lost : i t must therefore proceedon a thoroughly establ ished intel lectual understandingbetween the author and the audience— an understandingwhich does not yet exi st between Ibsen and our playgoingpubl ic . But tragedy, l ike Handel

’s “darkness that mightbe felt

,i s none the worse theatrical ly for being intel

lectually obscure and Oppressive . The pathos o f Hedwig

Ekdal’

s suicide or Little Eyolf’

s death is quite independ

ent of any “explanation” of the play ; but most of the funof Hjalmar Ekdal

, Gregers Werle , Relling, Molvik andGina

,to an audience stil l dominated by conventional

ideals,must be as imperceptible , except when it hurts , as

it is to Hjalmar himsel f . This puts the comedy houses

160


I observe by the publishers’ columns that Mr . CharlesCharrington, the only stage-manager of genius the newmovement has produced, and quite its farthest-seeingpioneer, has taken to l iterature . Miss Janet Achurch hasrelapsed into Shakespeare , and is going to play Cleopatraat the forthcoming Calvert ianrevival in Manchester

,after

which I invite her to look Ibsen in the face again if shecan . Miss Robins is devoting the spoils of “Little Eyolf

”

to Echegaray’s “Mariana,” which must, for business

reasons, be produced very soon . There are no signs ofa fresh campaign onMiss Farr’s part . The only otherIbsenite enthusiast is Mrs . Patrick Campbell

, who is busystudying Emma Hami lton, the heroine o f

“the celestial

bed,” which will , I trust, figure duly in the forthcoming

Nelson drama at the Avenue .

Altogether, the prospects of a speedy performance ofJohn Gabriel Borkman” are not too promising.

OLIVIA

Olivia: a play in four acts. By the late W. G. Wills.

Founded onan episode in The V icar o f Wakefield.

”

Revival . Lyceum Theatre, 30 January, 1897.

HE world changes so rapidly nowadays that Ihardly dare speak to my juniors of the things thatw onmy affections when I was a sceptical , imper

turbable, hard-headed young man of twenty-three or

thereabouts . Now that I am an impressionable , excitable ,sentimental—if I were a woman everybody would sayhysterical—party on the wrong side o f forty, I am con

scious of being in danger of making myself ridiculous

162


unless I confine my publ ic expressions o f enthusiasm to

great works which are stil l before their time . That Q7why

,when “

Ol ivia” was revived at the Lyceum lastSaturday

,I blessed the modern custom o f darkening the

auditorium during the performance , since it enabled meto cry secretly . I wonder what our playgoing freshmenJthink of “Ol ivia .

” I do not , o f course, mean what theythink of its opening by the descent of tw o persons to thefootl ights to carry on an expository conversation beginning

,

“It is now twenty-five years since, nor theantediluvian asides of the “I do but dissemble” order in

Thornhill’

s part , at which the gallery burst out laughing.

These things are the mere fashions o f the play, not thel ife of it . And it is concerning the li fe o f it that I ask

how the young people w ho see it to-day for the first time

as I saw it nearly twenty years ago at the old CourtTheatre feel about it .I must reply that I have not the least idea . For whathas thi s generation in common with me, or with

“Olivia ,

”

or with Goldsmith ? The first book I ever possessed wasa Bible bound in black leather with gilt metal rims anda clasp , sl ightly larger than my sisters

’ Bibles because Iwas a boy , and was therefore fitted with a bigger Bible ,precisely as I was fitted with bigger boots . In spite ofthe trouble taken to impress me with the duty of readingit (with the natural result of fill ing me with a convictionthat such an occupation must be almost as disagreeableas going to church ) , I acquired a considerable famil iaritywith it, and indeed once read the Old Testament and thefour Gospels straight through

,from a vainglorious desire

to do what nobody else had done . A sense of the sanctityo f clergymen , and the holiness of Sunday, Easter andChristmas— sanctity and hol iness meaning to me a sort

163


of reasonlessly inhibitory condition in which it was wrongto do what I l iked and especially meritorious to makemyself miserable—was imbibed by me

,not from what is

cal led a strict bringing-up (which, as may be guessed bymy readers, I happi ly e scaped ) , but straight from thesocial atmosphere . And as that atmosphere was muchl ike the atmosphere of Olivia,

” I breathe it as one tothe manner born .

The question is , then, has that atmosphere changed so

much that the play is only hal f comprehensible to theyounger spectato rs ? That there is a considerable changeI cannot doubt ; for I find that if I mention Adam andEve, or Cain and Abel , to people o f adequate modernequipment under thirty, they do not know what I amtalking about .

“

The Scriptural l iterary style which fascinatedWil ls as it fascinated Scott is to them quaint andartificial . Think of the difference between the presentBishop o f London

’s History o f the Popes and anythingthat the Vicar o f Wakefield could have conceived or written ! Think o f the eldest daughters of our two-horsecarriage vicars going out , as female dons with Newnhamdegrees , to teach the granddaughters

“ of ladies shamefacedly conscious of having been educated much as Mrs .Primrose was ; and ponder wel l whether such domesticincidents can give any clue to poor Ol ivia going off bycoach to be “companion” to “some old tabby” in Yorkshire , and—most monstrous o f al l— previously presentingher brothers with her Prayer-book and her Pi lgrim ’sProgress ,

” and making them promise to pray for herevery night at their mother ’s knee . Read “The WomanWho Did

,

” bearing in mind its large circulation and thetotal failure of the attempt to work up the sl ightest publ ic“feeling against it ; and then consider how obsolescent must

164


ical power, pride, strength and success in the actress, butcertainly, as I shall presently show ,

by the Lyceum con

ditions. To - f lay the conditions are altered ; the vanitieshave passed away with the water under the bridges ; andthe del icacy and charm have returned . We have theoriginal Ol ivia again , in appearance not discoverably aweek older, and much ideal ized and softened by the disuse of the mere brute force of tears and grief

,which

Miss Terry formerly employed so unscrupulously in thescene of the presents and of the elopement that she madethe audience positively howl with angu ish . She nowplays these scenes with infinite mercy and art

,the effect

,

though less hysterical , being deeper, whilst the balanceof the second act is for the first time properly adjusted .

The third act should be seen by al l those who know EllenTerry only by her efforts to extract a precarious sus

tenance for her reputation from Shakespeare : it willteach them what an artist we have thrown to our nationaltheatrical Minotaur. When I think of the original ity

fand modernity o f‘

the talent she revealed twenty yearsago , and of its remorseless waste ever since in

“supporting” an actor who prefers “The Iron Chest” to Ibsen,my regard for Sir Henry Irving cannot bl ind me to thefact that it would have been better for us twenty-fiveyears ago to have tied him up in a sack with every existing copy o f the works of Shakespeare, and dropped him

the crater o f the nearest volcano . It real ly serveshim right that his Vicar is far surpassed by Mr . HermannVezin ’s . I do not forget that there never was a morebeautiful , a more dignified, a more pol ished, a more cult ivated, a more perfectly mannered Vicar than Sir HenryIrving’s . He annihi lated Thornhill , and scored off everybody else, by sheer force of behavior. When, on receiv

166


ing that letter that looked l ike a notice o f distraint forrent

,he said

,with memorable charm o f diction , The

law never enters the poor man ’s house save as an op

pressor,

” i t was difli cult to refrain from jummng on thestage and saying,

“Heaven bless you , sir, why don’t you

go to London and start a proprietary chapel ? You wouldbe an enormous success there .

” There is nothing of thisabout the Vezin Vicar . To Farmer Flamborough he maybe a fine gentleman ; but to Thornhi ll he is a very simpleone . To the innkeeper he is a prodigy o f learning ; butout in the world

,looking for his daughter, h is strength

l ies only in the pathos of his anxious perseverance . Hescores off nobody except in his quaint theological disputation with the Presbyterian ; but he makes Thornhi l lashamed by not scoring off him . It is the appeal o f hishumanity and not the beauty of his style that carries himthrough ; and h is idolatry o f his daughter is unselfish andfatherly , j ust as her aff ection for him is at last touchedwith a motherly instinct which his unworldly helplessnessrouses in her . Handl ing the part ski l ful ly and sincerelyfrom this point of view , Mr . Hermann Vezin brings theplay back to l i fe on the boards where Sir Henry Irving,by making it the occasion o f an exhibition of extraor

dinary refinement of execution and personal ity, verynearly killed it as a drama . In the third act

,by appeal

ing to our admiration and artistic appreciation instead ofto our belie f and human sympathy, Sir Henry Irvingmade Ol ivia an orphan . In the famous passage wherethe Vicar tries to reprove his daughter

,and is choked by

the surge o f his aff ection for her,he reproved Ol ivia l ike

a saint and then embraced her l ike a lover . With Mr

Vezin the reproof is a piti ful stammering fai lure : itsbreak-down is neither an “eff ect nor a surpri se : it is

167


foreseen as inevitable from the first, and comes as Nature’s

ordained relief when the sympathy is strained to burstingpoint . Mr . Vezin’s entry in this scene is very pathetic .His face is the face o f a man who has been disappointedto the very heart every day for months ; and his hungrylook round, hal f longing, hal f anticipating another disappointment, gives j ust the right cue for his attitude towards Thornhill, to whom he says ,

“I forget you,

” not inconscious dignity and judgment, but as if he meant,“Have I , who forget myself, any heart to remember youwhilst my daughter is missing ? ” When a good scene istaken in this way, the very accessories become eloquent,l ike the decent poverty o f Mr . Vezin’s brown overcoat .Sir Henry Irving, not satisfied to be so plain a person asthe Vicar of Wakefield , gave us something much finerand more distinguished , the beauty of which had to standas a substitute for the pathos of those parts of the playwhich it destroyed . Mr . Vezin takes his part for betterfor worse, and fits himself faithfully into it . The resultcan only be appreciated by those whose memory is goodenough to compare the eff ect o f the third act in 1885 andto-day. Also , to weigh Ol ivia with the Vicar right againstOlivia with the Vicar wrong. I purposely f0rce the comparison between the two treatments because it is a typicalone . The history o f the Lyceum , with its twenty years

’

steady cultivation o f the actor as a personal force , andits utter neglect of the drama

,i s the history of the Engl ish

stage during that period ! Those twenty years have raisedthe social status o f the theatrical profession, and culm inated in the official recognition of our chief actor asthe peer of the President of the Royal Academy and thefigureheads o f the other arts . And now I , being a dram

atist and not an actor, want to know when the drama is

168


Bohemian Girl o f the gipsy, the eff ect being very nearlyoperatic . Miss Craig may have studied her part fromthe l i fe ; but i f so , I should be glad to know where , so

that I may instantly ride off to have my fortune told bythe original .

MR . WILSON BARRETT AS THEMESSIAH

The Daughters of Babylon: a play in four acts. ByWilson Barrett. Lyric Theatre, 6 February, 1897.

R . WiLSON BARRETT, responding to the editor o fthe “Academy

,

” has just declared that his iavorite books in 1896 were the Bible and Shake

speare . No less might have been expected from a manager who has combined piety with business so successfullyas the author o f “The Sign o f the Cross .” Isaiah hasespecially taken hold of his imagination . No doubt whenhe read, Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never haveenough ; and they are shepherds that cannot understandthey al l look to their own way, every one for his gain ,from his quarter

,he recognized in Isaiah the makings

of a first-rate dramatic critic . But what touched himmost was the famil iar “He shal l feed his flock l ike ashepherd : he shal l gather the lambs with his arm , andcarry them in his bosom

,and shal l gently lead those that

are with young .

” I f Mr . Barrett had been a musician ,l ike Handel

,he would have wanted to set that text to

music. Being an actor, he“saw himself in the part ,

” andcould not rest unti l he had gathered a lamb with his arm

170


and carried it on to the stage in The Daughters ofBabylon .

” The imagined effect was not quite real izedon the first night, partly, no doubt, because Mr. EdwardJones , the conductor o f the band, omitted to accompanythe entry with the obvious Handel ian theme, and perhapspartly because the lamb proved unworthy of the con

fidence placed by Mr . Barrett in its good manners . Butthe strongest reason was that metaphor i s not drama , nor

tableau vivant acting . I hold Mr . Wi lson Barrett in highesteem as a stage manager and actor ; and I have no doubtthat Mr . Wi lson Barrett would al low that I am a fairlycompetent workman with my pen .

‘

But when he takesup the tools o f my craft and tries his hand at dramaticliterature , he produces exactly the same effect on me asI should produce on him i f I were to try my hand atplaying Othello . A man cannot be everything. To writein any style at al l requires a good many years practiceto write in the Scriptural style well enough to be ableto incorporate actual passages from the Authorized Version o f the Bible without producing the eff ect o f patchinga shabby pair of trousers with snippets o f fifteenth -century Venetian brocade

,requires not only l iterary ski ll of

the most expert kind,but a special technical gi ft, such as

Stevenson had,for imitating the turn o f classical styles .

Mr . Wi lson Barrett is here fairly entitled to interruptme by saying

,

“Do not waste your time in telling me what

I know already . I grant it all . But I have reverentlysubmitted my qual ifications to expert opinion . MissMarie Corel l i , the most famous writer o f the day, whoseprodigious success has earned her the envious hate o f

the poor j ourneymen of l iterature to whom she will not

even deign to send review copies of her books, tells methat I have ‘the unpurchasable gi ft of genius

’

; that my

171


language is ‘choice and scholarly’ ; that I‘could w in the

laurels of the poet had I not opted for those of thedramatist’ ; that I have power and passion, orchidacity

and flamboyancy and that my‘Babylon’ is better than

‘The Sign of the Cross ,’ which was not only enormously

successful , but was approved by the clerical profession ,to whom Greek and Hebrew are as mother tongues.

'

Whoare you , pray, Mr . Saturday Reviewer, that I should setthis mass of disinterested authority beneath your possiblyenvious disparagementsThis is altogether unanswerable as far as the weight

of authority is concerned . I confess that I am in an infinitesimal minority, and that my motives are by no meansabove suspicion . Therefore I must either hold my tongueor else rewrite the play to show how it ought to be done .Such a demonstration is beyond my means

,unless a public

subscription be raised to remunerate my toil ; but I donot mind giving a sample or tw o . Suppose I were to tel lMr . Wilson Barrett that among the many j udicial utterances in the Bible, by Solomon, Festus , Fel ix, Pilate,and others , I had found such a remark as The evi denceagainst thee is but s light

,

” would he not burst out laughing at me for my ridiculous mixture of modern OldBaileyEnglish with the obsolete fashion o f using the secondperson singular ? Yet he has used that very phrase inThe Daughters of Babylon .

” Pray observe that I shouldnot at al l obj ect to the wording of the whole drama inthe most modern vernacular

,even if it were carried to

the extent o f making the Babylonian idol seller talk likea coster. But modern vernacular seasoned with theesand thous and haths and whithers to make it sound peradventurously archaic is another matter . Let us have“There is not sufficient evidence against you,

”or else let

172


The Daughters o f Babylon, then, is not l ikely toplease critics who can write ; for nothing antagonizes agood workman so much as bad workmanship in his owncraft . It wil l encounter also a prejudice against his exploitation of the conception of rel igious art held by theaverage Engl ish citizen . Against that prej udice

,however

,

I am prepared to defend it warmly . I cannot for the lifeo f me understand why Mr. Wi lson Barrett should not dowhat Ary Scheffer and Muller , Sir Noel Paton and Mr .Goodal l , Mr. Herbert Schmalz and the publishers of theDoré Bible, not to mention Miss Corel li hersel f, are doing,o r have been doing, al l through the century without protest. For my part, whi lst, as a Superior Person, I reservethe right to look down on such conceptions of rel igionas Caesar might have looked down at a toy soldier, yetthe advance from the exploitation o f i l l iterate and fool ishmelodramatic conventions in which nobody bel ieves

,to

that of a sentiment which is a living contemporary real ity,and which identifies the stage at last with popular artistic,l iterary and musical

’

culture ( such as it is ) , i s to me moremomentous than the production of “John Gabriel Borkman” at the Lyceum would be . Mr . Wi lson Barrett hasfound that he can always bring down the house with ahymn : the first act o f “The Daughters of Babylon ,

” afterdriving the audience nearly to melancholy madness byits dulness , i s triumphantly saved in that way. Well ,any one who takes a walk round London on Sunday evening wil l find

,at innumerable street corners , l ittle bands

of thoroughly respectable citizens , with their wives anddaughters

,standing in a circle and singing hymns . It

is not a fashionable thing to do—not even a conventionalthing to do : they do it because they bel ieve in it. Andpray why is that part of their l ives not to find expression

174


in dramatic art as it finds expression, unchallenged, inal l the other fine arts ? Are we to drive Mr . Wilson Barrett back from his texts , his plagal cadences , and hisstage pictures from the I llustrated Bible, to

“Arrest thatman : he is a murderer, or

“Release that man : he isin-know-scent

,

”or

“Richard Dastardson: you shal l rrepent-er that-er b-er- low” ? The pity is that Mr. WilsonBarrett does not go further and grati fy his very evidentdesire to impersonate the Messiah without any sort ofcircumlocution or disguise . That w e shall have PassionPlays in the London theatres as surely as w e shall someday have “Parsi fal” has for a long time past been as

certain as any development under the sun can be ; andthe sooner the better . I have travelled all the w ay to

Ober-Ammergau to see a Passion Play wh ich was financed in the usual manner by a syndicate o f VienneseJews . Why should not the people who cannot go so farhave a Passion Play performed for them in ShaftesburyAvenue ? The fact that they want it i s proved, I take it,by the success of

“Barabbas .” Depend on it, w e shallsee Mr . Wilson Barrett crucified yet ; and the effect wi llbe, not to debase rel igion, but to elevate the theatre, whichhas hitherto been al lowed to ridicule religion but not tocelebrate it, j ust as it has been allowed to j est indecentlywith sex questions but not to treat them serious ly.

As it is,“The Daughters of Babylon” suff ers a good

deal from our religious prudery. Mr. Wilson Barrettunderp lays his part to an extent quite unaccountable onthe face of it, the fact being that he plays , not Lemuel ,but the Messiah disguised as Lemuel , and therefore exeludes al l fear, passion and perplexity from his conception , retaining Only moral indignation for strong effects ,and fal ling back at other times on superhuman serenity,

I7S


indulgence, pity and prophetic sadness . In short, he isplaying a part which he did not venture to write ; andthe result is that the part he did write is sacrificed without any apparent compensation . It i s dangerous for anactor to mean one part whi lst playing another

,unless

the audience is thoroughly in the secret ; and it is quitefatal for an author to mean one play and write another .There was no such want of directness in “The Sign ofthe Cross . In it the Christian scenes were as straightforward as the Roman ones and Marcus Superbus wasmeant for Marcus Superbus and nobody else . In “TheDaughters of Babylon” the Jewish scenes are symbol ic ;and though the Babylonian scenes are straightforwardenough (and therefore much more effective ) , they arepervaded by the symbolic Lemuel

,who lets them down

dramatical ly every,

time he enters . With this doublenesso f purpose at the heart of it, the play may succeed as aspectacle and a rite ; but it will not succeed as a melodrama .

Like all plays under Mr . Barrett’s management, TheDaughters o f Babylon is excellently produced . Thescene painters are the heroes of the occasion . Mr . Telbin’s

grove standing among the cornfields on a hilly plain, andMr. Hann ’s view of Babylon by night, in the Doré style,are special ly eff ective ; and the tents of Israel on the hi l lside make a pretty bit of landscape in Mr . Ryan ’s “Judgment Seat by the City of Zoar,

” in which , however, thenecessity for making the judgment seat “practicable” leftit impossible for the artist to do quite as much as Mr.Telbin. The cast, consisting o f thirty-three persons , al lof them encouraged and worked up as i f they wereprincipals— a feature for which Mr . Wilson Barrett, asmanager

,can hardly have too much credit—must be con

176


all his faithful confederates be baked in the fiery furnacesooner than accept her proffered affection

,the sympathy

o f the audience departed from him for ever. So didmine ; but, al l the same, I beg Miss Hanbury not to imagine

,whatever the gal lery may think, that she has learnt

to act heavy parts merely because she has picked up themere mechanics o f ranting. And I implore her not totalk about “the lor of Babylon .

” The quarter-centuryduring which Sir Henry Irving has been attacking hisinitial vowels with a more than German scrupulousnessshould surely by this time have made it possible for aleading actress to pronounce two consecutive vowelswithout putting an “r” between them .

The musical arrangements are so lavish as to includea performance o f Max Bruch ’s “Kol Nidrei” ( fami l iaras a violincello piece ) between the first and second acts ,by a Dutch solo viol inist of distinction, M . Henri Seiff ert .

FOR ENGLAND ,HOME AND BEAUTY

Nelson’

s Enchantress : a new play in four acts, by .

Risden H ome . Avenue Theatre, 11 February, 1897.

AM beginning seriously to believe that Woman isgoing to regenerate the w orlda fter al l . H ere is adramatist, the daughter o f an admiral w ho was

midshipman to Hardy, who was captain to Nelson, whocommitted adultery with Lady Hamilton , who was notoriously a polyandrist . And what is her verdict on LadyHamilton ? Simply that what the conventional male dramatist would call her “impurity” was an entirely respect

178


able,lovable

,natural feature o f her character, inseparably

bound up with the qual ities which made her the favoritefriend of England ’s favorite hero . There is no apologymade for this View

,no consciousness be trayed at any point

that there is, or ever was, a general assumption that it isan improper view . There you have your Emma Hart ,in the first act the mistress o f Grevi lle, in the second re

pudiated by Grevi l le and promptly transferring her affection to his uncle

,in the third married to the uncle and

fall ing in love with another man (a married man ) , andin the fourth l iving with this man during his wi fe ’s li fetime

,and parting from him at his death with al l the hon

ors o f a wife . There is no more question raised as to thepropriety o f i t al l than as to Imogen ’s virtue in repulsingIachimo . An American poetess , Mrs . Charlotte StetsonPerkins , has described , in biting l ittle verses , how she

met a Prej udice ; reasoned with it , remonstrated with it ,satirized it, ridiculed it, appealed to its feel ings , exhaustedevery argument and every blandishment on it withoutmoving it an inch ; and final ly “j ust walked through it .”

A better practical instance of this could hardly be foundthan “Nelson ’s Enchantress . Ibsen argues with our

prej udices—makes them , in fact, the subj ect o f h is plays .Result : we almost tear him to pieces , and shut our theatredoors as tight as we can against him .

“Risden Home”

walks through our prej udices straight onto the stage ; andnobody dares even whisper that Emma is not an edifyingexample for the young girl o f fifteen . Only , in the Houseof Commons a sol i tary Admiral wants the l icence o f thetheatre withdrawn for its presumption in touching on themorals of the quarter-deck . What does this simple saltsuppose would have happened to the theatre i f it had toldthe whole truth on the subj ect ?

I79


In order to real ize what a terrible person the NewWoman is , it is necessary to compare

“Nelson ’s Enchant!ress” with that ruthlessly orthodox book

,

“The HeavenlyTwins .” It is true that Madame Sarah Grand, though a

New Woman, wi l l connive at no triflings with“purity”

in its sense o f monogamy . But mark the consequence .

She wil l tolerate no Emma Harts ; but she will tolerateno Nelsons either . She says , in effect,

“Granted,gen

tlemen, that we are to come to you untouched and un

spotted, to whom, pray, are we to bring our purity ? Towhat the streets have left o f your purity, perhaps ? No,thank you : i f we are to be certified pure , you shall be socertified too : wholesome husbands are as important to usas wholesome wives are to you . We all remember thefrantic fury of the men

,their savage denunciations o f

Madame Sarah Grand,and the instant and huge success

of her book. There was only one possible defence againstit ; and that was to boldly deny that there was anythingunwholesome in the incontinences o f men— nay, to ap

peal to the popular instinct in defence o f the viril ity, thegood-heartedness

,and the lovable humanity o f Tom

Jones . Alas for male hypocrisy ! No sooner has the expected popular response come than another New Womanpromptly assumes that what is lovable in Tom Jones islovable in Sophia Western also , and presents us with anultra-sympathetic Enchantress heroinewho is an arrantl ibertine . The dilemma is a pretty one . For my part , Iam a man ; and Madame Grand

’s solution fills me with dismay . What I should l ike , o f course , would be the maintenance of tw o distinct classes of women , the one polyandrous and disreputable and the other monogamous andreputable . I could then have my fil l of polygamy amongthe polyandrous ones with the certainty that I could hand

180


the style of The Sign of the Cross instead of offeringthem up to the god of battles . With consummate professional skill founded on an apprenticeship that began inhis ch ildhood, having officers to match and hardy and ablecrews, and fighting against comparative amateurs at atime when the average French physique had been drivenfar below the average English one by the age of starvation that led to the burning of the Chateaux and the Revolution, he solemnly devoted himself to destruction in everyengagement as if he were leading a forlorn hOpe, andw onnot only on the odds , but on the boldest presumptionon the odds . When he was victorious, he insisted on thefullest measure o f glory, and would bear malice i f thepaltriest detail of his honors— the Mansion House dinner,for example—were omitted . When he was beaten, whichusually happened promptly enough when he made a shoreattack, he denied it and raged like a schoolboy, vowingwhat he would do to his adversary the next time he caughth im . He always played even his most heroic antagonistsoff the stage . At the battle of the Nile, Brueys, theFrench admiral , hopelessly outmanceuvred and outfought,refused to strike his colors and fought until the sea swal

lowed him and his defeat. Nothing could be more heroic.Nelson, on the other hand, w as knocked sil ly, and re

mained more or less so for about three years , disobeyingorders and luxuriating with Lady Hamilton, to the scandalof al l Europe . And yet who in England even mentionsthe brave Brueys or that nasty knock onthe head ? As toNelson’s private conduct , he , sai lor-l ike , married a widowona foreign station ; pensioned her off handsomely whenshe objected to his putting another woman in her place ;and finally set up a ménage atrois with Sir Will iam andLady Hamilton, the two men being deeply attached to

182


one another and to the lady, and the lady polyandrouslyattached to both of them . The only ch ild o f thi s “groupmarriage

”was Nelson

’s , and not the law ful husband’s .

Pray what would you say, pious reader, i f this were thestory of the hero of an Ibsen play instead of the perfectlywell known , and care ful ly never told , story of England

’s

pet hero ?

Risden Home , I regret to say , does not rise to theoccasion . Though she deals with Lady Hamilton like aNew Woman, she deals with Nelson l ike a Married one ,

taking good care that he shall not set a bad example tohusbands . She first gives us a momentary glimpse o f

Captain Horatio Nelson as an interesting and elegantyoung man , w ho could not poss ibly have ever suff ered

from scurvy . She introduces h im again as Admiral Nel

son immediately after the battle of the Nile , with tw o

eyes and an undamaged scalp . Lady Hamilton does notmake a scene by crying

“O my God ! and fainting onhi s

breast . On the contrary, in a recklessly unh i stori cal conversation, they both confes s their love and part for ever ,to the entire satis faction o f the moral instincts of theBritish publi c. Everyth ing having thus been done inproper form , Nelson is made Duke o f Bronte for the Nilevictory instead of for hanging Carracciolo ; the remainderof Sir William Hamilton ’s li fetime is tact fully passedover ; the existence o f Lady Nelson and little Horatia i spolitely ignored ; and Nelson is not reintroduced until his

brief stay at Merton on the eve of Tra falgar . The factthat he has only just returned f rom spending tw o yearsvery contentedly onboard ship away from his Enchantressis not insisted on. He recites h i s Wi l son-Barrett ianprayer ; parts from the heartbroken Emma ; and is presently seenby her in a vision , dying in the cockp it of the

183

Dramat ic Opinions and Essays“V ictory,

” and—considerate to the last of the interestso f morality in the theatre—discreetly omitting his recommendation of his illegitimate daughter to his country ’scare .Need I add, as to Emma herself, that we are spared

al l evidence of the fact that Greville only allowed her£20 a year to dress on and pay her personal expenses ;of her change from a sylph to a Fat Lady before theNile episode ; and the 1ncorrigible cabotinage which inspired her first meeting with Nelson, her poses plastiques ,and her habit

,after Nelson’s death, of going to concerts

and fainting publicly whenever Braham was announcedto sing ’Twas in Trafalgar’s Bay .

” In short, the Emma o f the play is an altogether imaginary person historically, but a real person humanly ; whereas the Nelson ,equally remote from history, is a pure heroic convention .

It still remains true that the British publ ic i s incapableo f admiring a real great man, and insists onhaving in'h is

place the foolish image they suppose a great man to be .

Under such restrictions no author can be genuinelydramatic. “Risden Home” has had no chance except inthe Greville episode of the first act ; and this is of quiteextraordinary merit as plays go nowadays . Grevil le isdrawn as only a woman could draw him . Although thecharacter sketches certainly lack the vividness , and thedialogue lacks the force and the independence of l iteraryforms and conventions which a more practised hand couldhave given them , yet they are several knots ahead ofaverage contemporary dramatic fiction . The l iterarypower displayed is , after Mr . Wilson Barrett and MissCorelli , positively classical ; and the author has plenty of

scenic instinct . We have probably not heard the last of“Ri sden Home .

84

THE ECHEGARAY MATINEES

Mariana. By 1035. Echegaray . Translatedby JamesGraham. Court Theatre, 22 February, 1897.

T IS now nearly two years since I pointed out , on the

publication o f Mr . James Graham ’s translations o fEchegaray, that Mariana” was pre-eminently a

play for an actress-manageress to snap up . The onlyperson w ho appreciated the opportunity in this country

was Miss El izabeth Robins . Mr. Daly, on the other sideo f the Atlantic, tried to secure the play for Miss AdaRehan ; but early as Mr . Daly gets up in the morning,Miss Robins gets up earlier : otherwise w e might have

had Mariana,” touched up in Mr . Daly’s best Shake

spearean style, at the Comedy last season instead o f“Countess Gucki .”

The weakness of Mariana l ies in the unconvincingeffect o f the disclosure which brings about the catastrophe . When

.

a circumstance that matters very l ittle tous is magnified for stage purposes into an affair of l i feand death, the resultant drama must needs be purely sensational : it cannot touch our consciences as they are

touched by plays in which the motives are as real to usas the actions . I f the

r

atmosphere of“Mariana” were

thoroughly conventional and old-fashioned , or i f Mari

ana were presented at first as a fanatical ideal ist on thesubject o f “honor ,

” l ike Ruy Gomez in “Hernani ,”

or

Don Pablo, we might feel with her that al l was lost whenshe discovered in her chosen Daniel the son of the manwith whom her mother had eloped, even though that cir

186


cumstance does not involve the remotest consanguinitybetween them . But since she i s introduced as the mos twayward and wilful of modern women, moving in a byno means serious set , the fanatical action she takes is to

a Londoner neither inevitable nor natural . For us thereare only two obj ections to Daniel . The first—that i twould be very embarrassing to meet his father— i s trivial ,and might be got over simply by refusing to meet h im .

The other— the repul sion created by the idea of Daniel’

s

close relationship to the man she loathes —is credible andsufficient enough ; but it is quite incompatible with the

persistence of such an ardent afl'ect ion for him that shecan only forti fy herself against hi s fascination by marry

ing a murderously j ealous and strai tlaced man for whomshe does not care . In short, the discovery either produces

a revulsion o f feel ing against Daniel or i t does not. I fit does , the monstrous step o f marrying Pablo is unnecessary ; i f not, Mariana is hardly the woman to allow aconvention to stand between her and her lover . At al levents , i t seems to me that the motive of the catastrophe ,however plausible it may be in Spain , is forced and theatrical in London ; that the situation at the end of thethird act is unconvincing ; and that Engl i shwomen willnever be able to look at Mariana and say, But for the

grace of God, there go I ,” as they do at Ibsen’s plays .

But with th is reservation , the play is a masterly one .

Not only have w e in it an eminent degree of dramatic wit,imagination , sense of idiosyncrasy, and power over words

( these qualifications are perhaps sti ll expected from dramatists in Spain ) , but w e have the drawing-room presentedfrom the point o f view o f a man of the world in the

largest sense . The average British play purveyor, whoknows what a greengrocer is like, and knows what a

187


stockbroker or editor is l ike, and can imagine what aduke is l ike, and cannot imagine what a Cabinet Ministeris l ike ; w ho has been once to the private view at theAcademy in the year when his own portrait was exhibited there, and once to the Albert Hal l to hear Albani in“Elij ah,

”and once to the Opera to hear “Carmen

,

” and

has cultivated himsel f into a perfect museum of chatty

ignorances o f big subjects , is beside Echegaray what abeadle is beside an ambassador . Echegaray was a Cab

inet Minister himsel f before the vicissitudes to which thatposition generally leads in Spain drove him

,at forty-tw o ,

to turn his mind in exile to dramatic authorship . Whenyou consider what a parochially insular person evenThackeray was, and how immeasurably most of our

dramatists fall short of Thackeray in width o f social horizon, you wil l

'

be prepared for the effect of superiority

Echegaray produces as a man who comprehends his

world, and knows society not as any diner-out or Mayfair butler knows it

, but as a capable statesman knows it.

The performance on Monday last began unhappi ly.

In the first act everybody seemed afraid to do more than

hurry half-heartedly over an exposition which requiredease, leisure, confidence, and brightness o f comedy styleto make it acceptable. In the prel iminary conversationbetween Clara and Trinidad, Miss S itgreaves and MissMary Keegan, though neither of them is a novice, wereso i ll at ease that we hardly dared look at them ; and theirrelief when Mr . Hermann Vezin and Mr . Martin Harveycame to keep them in countenance was obvious and heartfelt . Yet, later on, Miss S itgreaves, who is unmistakablya clever actress , made quite a hit ; and Miss Keeganwalked in beauty l ike the night with more than her customary aplomb . Even Miss Robins had to force her

88


mark wi ll seem fraught with emotions from the veryocean-bed of solemnity and pathos . That is the way toconvince our Partridges that you are a real actor. However, it is an il l wind which blows nobody any good ; and,as I happen to appreciate Mr . Vezin’s rational style o f

acting, and to have a quite unspeakable contempt for thes leepwalking, drunken style, I hail Mr. Vezin

’s rare appearances with great enjoyment and relief. I wonder,by the way, why the possession of skill and good senseshould be so fatal to an actor or actress as it i s at present.Why do we never see Mr . Vezin or Mr . William Farrenexcept when a revival of “The School for Scandal” or

“Olivia” makes them absolutely indispensable ? Why isit morally certain that i f Mr. Hare had not gone intomanagement, w e should for years past have heard of

him, without ever seeing him ,as everybody’s dearest

friend, only so“dry,

” so “unlucky,” so any-excuse-for

engaging-some-third-rate-nonentity-in-his-place, that hewould be only a name to young playgoers ? Why wouldSir Henry Irving and Mr . Wyndham vanish instantlyfrom the stage i f they did not hold their places by thestrong hand as managers ? I said I wondered at thesethings ; but that was only a manner of speaking, for Ithink I know the reasons well enough . They wil l befound in my autobiography, which will be publishedfifty years after my death .

Well,as I have intimated, Mr. Vezin was an excellent

Felipe,and in fact secured the success of the play by

his support to Mariana in the critical second act. ButMiss Robins would, I think, have succeeded at th is pointtriumphantly

,support or no support ; for the scene i s

not only a most penetrating one , but it demands exactlythose qualities in wh ich her strength l ies, notably an in

190


tensity in sympath izing with herself which reminds oneo f

“David Copperfield .

” The parallel will bear pursuingby

"

those who are interested in arriving at a clear estimateo f Miss Robins’s peculiar assortment of efficiencies anddeficiencies—an assortment commoner off the stage than

on it . For instance , she fails as Mariana just whereDickens—would have failed if he had attempted to drawsuch a character : that is, in conveying the least impression of her impulsive rapture of love for Daniel . Almostany woman on the stage , from the most naive little animal in our musica l farces up to the heartwise Miss EllenTerry, could have played better to Daniel than Miss Robins did . Her love scenes have some scanty flashes of misch ievous humor in them , of vanity, of curiosity of avivisectionist kind— in short, of the egotistical , cruelside of the romantic instinct ; but of its altruistic, afl ect ionate side they have not a ray or beam . Only once dida genuine sympathetic impulse show itself ; and that wasnot to Daniel , but to the foster-father, Felipe . Yet MissRobins played the lover very industriously. She rose ,and turned away, and changed chai rs , and was troubledand tranquil , grave and gay, by turns , and gave flowersfrom her bosom , al l most painstakingly . Be ing unable

to put her heart into the work and let it direct her eyes ,she laid muscular hold of the eyes at first hand andworked them from the outside for all they were worth .

But she only drew blood once ; and that was when shelooked at Daniel and said someth ing to the effect that“Nobody can look so ridiculous as a lover . There was

no mistake about the sincerity of that, or of the instantresponse from the audience

,which had contemplated

Miss Robins’s elaborately acted and scrupulously gentlemanlike gal lantries with oppressed and doubting hearts .

191


I must say I cannot bring mysel f to declare this ashortcoming on Miss Robins’s part, especially since hersuccess as the sympathetic.Asta Allmers proves that itcannot have been the affect ion that eluded her, but onlythe romance . Among the Russian peasantry young people when they fal l romantically in love are put underrestraint and treated medically as lunatics . In this country they are privileged as inspired persons

,l ike ordinary

lunatics in ignorant communities ; and i f they are crossed ,they may (and often do ) commit murder and suicidewith the deepest public sympathy . In “John GabrielBorkman (a performance of which is promised by MissRobins immediately after Easter ) a lady, Mrs . Wilton ,elopes with a young man . Being a woman of some experience , thoroughly al ive to the possibility that she wil lget tired of the young man

,or the young man o f her,

not to mention the certainty of their boring one anotheri f they are left alone together too much with no resourcebut lovemaking, she takes the precaution of bringinganother woman along with her . This incident has provoked a poignant squeal of indignation from the Engl ishPress . Much as we journalists are now afraid of Ibsenafter the way in which we burnt our fingers in our firsthandling of him

, w e could not stand Mrs . Wi lton’s fore

thought . It was declared on al l hands an unaccountable ,hideous , and gratuitously nasty blemish on a work towhich , Otherwise , w e dared not be uncompl imentary . Butplease observe that i f Ibsen had represented Mrs . Wiltonas finding a love letter addressed by Borkman Junior toFrida Foldal

,and as having thereupon murdered them

both and then slain hersel f in despair on their corpses ,everybody would have agreed that a lady could do noless , and that Ibsen had shown the instinct of a true tragic

192


eff ect .of i nequality ; and those w ho , not being trainedcritical analysts, cannot discover the clue to its variations,must be a good deal puzzled by the artificiality of MissRobins

’

s treatment of the love theme, which repeatedlymars the effect of her genuine power over the apparentlymore difli cult theme of the lesson she has learnt fromAlvarado, and of her impulse to place herself under thegrim discipline of Pablo . The main fault real ly l ies

,as

I have shown, with the dramatist, who has planned hisplay on the romantic lines of Schiller and Victor Hugo

,

and filled it in with a good deal of modern real ist matter .Mr. H . B . Irving, as Daniel , is untroubled by Russianscruples, and raves his way through the transports o f

the Spanish lover in a style which wil l not bear eriticism, but nevertheless disarms it, partly by its courageand thoroughness , partly because it is the only possiblestyle for him at the present stage o f his trying but notunpromising development as an actor. Mr . Welch ’s Castulo is a masterpiece of manner and make-up . Mr.

O’

Neill i s not quite fitted as Pablo : he looks more likelyto get shot by Miss Robins than to shoot her . Mr . Martin Harvey, Mr . George Bancroft, and Miss Mabel Hackney take care o f the minor parts . As matters Of detai l Imay suggest that the first act might have been improvedby a little more ingenuity of management, and by as light effort on the part of the company to conceal theirhurry to get through i t . Also that Mr . Irv ing wi l l certainly be cut off with a shill ing i f his father ever hearshim speak o f

“the Marianer o f my dreams ,” and that

Miss Robins’s diction, once very pleasant, and distin

guished by a certain charming New England freshness ,i s getting stained and pinched with the tricks of genteelBayswater cockneydom—a thing not to be suffered without vehement protest.

I94

GALLERY ROWDYISM

The Mac Haggis : a farce in three acts, by JeromeK. Jerome and Eden Ph ilpotts: Globe Theatre, 25

February, 1897 .

HE MAC HAGGIS, at the Globe Theatre , is awild tale of a prim young London gentleman who suddenly succeeds to the chieftain

ship of a High land clan—such a clan as Mr . Jerome K .

Jerome might have conceived in a nightmare after reading “

Rob Roy. It is an intentionally and impenitentlyoutrageous play : in fact its main assumptions are almostas nonsensical as those of an average serious drama ; butits absurdi ty is kept with in the l imits of human enduranceby the Jeromian shrewdness and humanity o f its smallchange . Nevertheless it is not good enough for Mr .Weedon Grossmith , being only the latest of a long stringof farces written for him on the assumption that he is

a funny man and nothing more . The truth is that heis the only first-rate comedian under fifty on the Londonstage. Later on he may find a worthy rival in Mr.Welch ; but at present his superiority in comedy is incontestable . In this Mac Haggis business , silly as mucho f it is , there is not a touch o f caricature or a taint o fclowning. Take for example the farcial duel with BlackHamish in the last act, which might have been designedas a bit of business for a circus clown . Mr . Grossmith

l i fts it to the comedy plane by acting that fight as i f hewere on Bosworth Field . H is gleam of sel f-satis factionwhen he actually succeeds in hitting his adversary ’sshield a very respectable thwack, and the blight that

IQS


withers up that perky little smile as the terrible ‘Hamishcomes on undaunted, are finer strokes of comedy thanour other comedians can get into the most delicate passages of parts written by Jones and Pinero . He nevercaricatures , never grimaces , never holds on to a laughl ike a provincial tenor holding onto his high B flat

,never

comes out o f his part for an instant, never relaxes themost anxious seriousness about the affairs of the char

acter he is impersonating, never laughs at himsel f or

with the audience, and is , in consequence, more continuously and keenly amusing in farce than any other actorI ever saw except Jefferson . The very naturalness o f

his work leads the public into taking its finest qual itiesas a matter of course ; so that whilst the most inane posing exhibiti ons by our tailor-made leading men aregravely discussed as brilliant conceptions and masterlyfeats of execution , Mr . Grossmith

’s creations , exempl ifying all the artistic qualities wh ich others lack, pass asnothing more than the facetiousnesses of a popular entertainer.

“The Mac Haggis is happily cast and well played al lround, Miss Laura Johnson giving an appal l ing intensityto the restless audacities of Ew eretta. Miss Johnson willprobably be able to do justice to a moderately quiet partwhen she is eighty-five or thereabouts : at present sheseems to have every qualification o f a modern actressexcept civil ization . This was the secret o f her successas Wallaroo in “The Duchess o f Coolgardie .” In all herparts she “goes Fantee” more or less .Although there were no dissentients to the applauseat the end o f

“The Mac Haggis ,” the authors did not

appear to make the customary acknowledgments . For

some time past the gods have been making themselves

196


and the attack on their privilege of clamor. Finally anunderstanding was arrived at. The right of the galleryto hiss and hoot and bawl to its heart’s content was fullyadmitted as a principle o f the British Constitution

,the

least infringement of which would be equivalent to thetearing up of Magna Charta but it was agreed that theright should not be exercised until the fall of the curtain.

The result of this was of course that the gallery nowbegan to hoot as an affirmation of its right to hoot, without reference to the merits of the performance . Thegentlemen who had formerly lain in wait for such linesas “Let me tell you that you are acting detestably,

” or“Would that the end were come !” to disconcert thespeaker with a sarcastic “Hear, hear !

” felt that sincethey had exchanged th is amusement for leave to hiss asmuch as they liked at the end o f the play, the permissionmust not lie unused .

“The Daughters of Babylon” was

the first great occasion on which the treaty came intooperation ; and the gallery seized the Opportunity to outdo its own folly. In the first act every popular favoritein the cast was greeted by an outburst of old forced, artificial, unmanly, undignified, base-toned, meaninglesshowling which degrades the gal lery to the level of amenagerie . At the end the hooting—the constitutionalhooting—began ; and immediately a trial of endurance

set in between the hooters and those who wished to giveMr. Wilson Barrett an ovation . After a prolonged anddismal riot

,Mr. Barrett turned the laugh against the

hooters,shouted them down with hal f a dozen sten

torian words,and finally got the audience out o f the

house . At “Nelson ’s Enchantress” the same medley o f

applause and hooting arose ; and Mr. Forbes Robertson,not caring, doubtless , to ask

“Risden Home to make

198


her first appearance by exposing hersel f to a half silly,

half blackguardly mob demonstration , made her acknow ledgments for her . But the moment he said— what elsecould he say

— that he would convey her the favorablereception of her piece , the hooters felt that their constitutional rights would be ignored unless Mr. Robertsonconveyed

,

the hoots as wel l as the plaudits . He verypointedly declined to do anything of the kind, and re

buked the constitutional party, which retired abashedbut grumbling.

These little scenes before the curtain are so obviouslymischievous and disgraceful , that the malcontents andthe constitutionalists are now reinforced by a section o f

demonstrators whose obj ect i t is to put a stop to thespeech-making, author-cal ling system altogether . It willbe remembered that on the first night o f “The NotoriousMrs . Ebbsmith Mr . Hare was about to respond to thedemands for a speech . Just as he Opened his mouth tobegm somebody cal led out

“No speech . Mr . Hare ,

with great presence of mind , imm ediately bowed andwithdrew . Nobody has since been so successful in help ;ing a manager out of a senseless ceremony ; but the ob

j ection on principle to speech-making still struggles forexpress1on 1n the tumult.Here , then, we have so many elements o f disorderthat it is necessary to give the situation some seriousconsideration . Let us see, to begin with , whether theal leged constitutional right to hoot and hiss can be defended . I suppose it wil l not be denied that it i s on

the face of it so offensive and unmannerly a th ing forone man to hiss and hoot : at another that such conductmust stand condemned unless it can be justified as acriminal sentence is j ustified . I know that there are

199

Dramat ic? t Op inions andiEssays

gallery-goers who contend that i f the people who l ikethe play applaud it, the people who disl ike it should injustice show, by expressing their dissatisfaction, that theapproval is not unanimous . They might as wel l contendthat i f a gentleman who admires a lady tells her thatshe has pretty hands , any bystander who does not admireher should immediately in j ustice tell her that she has ared nose, or that because fool ish admirers of actressesthrow bouquets to them, those who think the compl imentundeserved should throw bad eggs and dead cats . Nohooting must stand or fall by its pretension to be a salutary and necessary department of lynch law . Now inpunishing criminals w e treat them with atrocious cruelty—so much so that a good deal of crime goes unpunishedat present because humane people wi ll not cal l in thepolice or prosecute except in extreme cases . But cruelas our punishments are, we do not now make a sport ofthem as our forefathers did. Though we deal out sen

tences of hard labor and of penal servitude wh ich someof the victims would willingly exchange, i f they could,for the stocks, the pillory, or a reasonable degree of

branding, flogging, or ear-clipping, . it cannot be said o f

our methods that they are hypocritical devices for gratifying our own vilest lusts under the cloak of j ustice .

We didnot stop flogging women at the cart’s tail throughthe streets because the women disl iked it—w e condemnwomen to much more dreadful penalties at every sessions—but because the publ ic liked it. Solitary confinementis a diabol ical punishment ; but at least nobody gets anygratification out of it ; and the fun of seeing a blackflag go up on a prison flagstaff must be very poor compared to the bygone Tyburnian joys o f seeing the culprithanged . Hence I submit that i f an author or actor is

200


would cure any actor for ever of such blackguardism .

When has that hiss ever been forthcoming ? On theother hand , the gal lery wi l l trample furiously on del icatework l ike Mr. Henry James

’s , and keep refined and sensitive artists who attempt original and thoughtful workin dread al l through the first night lest some untheatricall ine should provoke a j eer or some stroke of genuinepathos a coarse laugh . There would be nothing to feari f playgoers were not demoral ized by the low standard ofmanners and conduct prevail ing in the gallery . Whatpossibi lity is there of fine art flourishing where ful ll icense to yell— the l icense of the cockpit and prize-ring— is insisted onby men who never dream of misbehavingthemselves elsewhere ?If I were starting in theatrical management to-morrow ,

I should probably abol ish the shil l ing gal lery -on firstnights,

'

and make the lowest price o f admission eitherhal f a crown or threepence, according to the district .A threepenny gallery is humble and decent, a half-crownone snobbish and continent . A shil l ing gal lery has thevices o f both and the virtues o f neither. But i f the shi lling gal lery is to continue

,let it behave as the stalls be

have : that is, applaud,’ when it wants to applaud, withits hands and not with its voice

,and go home promptly

and quietly when it does not want to applaud . If thereis anything wrong with the performance, the managementand the author wil l expiate it quite severely enough byheavy loss and disappointment. I may add that clappingas a method of applause has the great advantage o f beingmore expensive than shouting . The compass of vigorand speed of repercussion through which it varies is sogreat that its nuances are practical ly infinite : you cantell

,if your ear is worth anything, whether it means a

202


perfunctory Thanks aw f’ly, or a cool Good eveningsorry I shan’t be able to come again ,

” or an eager “Thankyou ever so much : i t was splendid, or any gradationbetween . Shouting can convey nothing but Booh !

”or

“Hooray !” except, as I have said, in moments o f real

enthusiasm,quite foreign to the demonstrativeness of

our theatre fanciers and greenroom gossip swallowers .

Best of al l would be no applause ; but that wi l l come lateron. For the present, since we cannot contain ourselveswholly, let us at least express ourselves humanly andsensibly.

MADO! BROWN , WATTS ,AND

IBSEN

I3 March, 1897.

T HAS not yet been noticed, I th ink, that the picturegalleries in London are more than usually interesting just now to those lovers of the theatre who fully

understand the saying “There is only one art .” At theGrafton Gallery w e have the l i fe-work o f the mostdramatic of al l painters , Ford Madox Brown , w ho was

a realist ; at the New Gallery that of Mr . G . F . Watts ,who is an idealist ; and at the Academy that of Leighton ,who was a mere gentleman draughtsman .

I cal l Madox Brown a Real ist because he had vitalityenough to find intense enjoyment and inexhaustible interest in the world as it real ly it

, unbeautified, unidealiz ed, unt itivated in any way for the artistic consumption .

This love of l i fe and knowledge of its worth is a rare

203


thing—whole Alps and Andes above the common marketdemand for prettiness, fashionableness , refinement, elegance o f style, delicacy of sentiment, charm of character,sympathetic philosophy ( the philosophy of the happy ending) , decorative moral systems contrasting roseate andrapturous vice with l il ied and languorous virtue

,and

making “Love” face both ways as the universal softenerand redeemer, the whole being worshipped as beauty or

virtue, and set in the place of l i fe to narrow and condition it instead of enlarging and fulfill ing it. To suchsul f-indulgence most artists are mere pandars ; for thesense of beauty needed to make a man an artist is sostrong that the sense o f li fe in him must needs be quiteprodigious to overpower it . It must always be a mystery to the ordinary beauty-fancying, l i fe-shirking amateur how the real ist in art can bring his unbeautified, remorseless celebrations of common l i fe in among so manypretty, pleasant, sweet, noble, touching, fictions, and yettake h is place there among the highest, although the rai ling, the derision, the protest, the positive disgust, arealmost universal at first . Among painters the examplesmost familiar to us are Madox Brown and Rembrandt .But Madox Brown is more o f a realist than Rembrandt ;for Rembrandt idealized his color : he would draw l i fewith perfect integrity

,but would paint it always in a

golden glow— as i f he cared less for the direct l ight o fthe

'

sun than for its reflection in a pot of treacle—andwould sacrifice real color to that stage glow without remorse . Not so Madox Brown . You can al l breathe hisOpen air

,warm yoursel f in his sun, and smell

“the greenmantle of the standing pool” in his Dalton picture . Again,Rembrandt would have died rather than paint a cabbageunconditionally green , or meddle with those piercing


Madox Brown . Nature itsel f is not more unbiassed asbetween a pretty woman and a plain one , a young womanand an old one , than he . Compare the comely wife of

John of Gaunt in the Wycliff e picture with the wife ofFoscari, who has no shop-window good looks to give anagreeable turn to the pitifulness o f her action as she l i ftsthe elbow o f the broken wretch whose maimed hands cannot embrace her without help . A bonne bouche of prettiness here would be an insult to our humanity ; but in thecase of Mrs . John of Gaunt, the good looks of the wifeas she leans over and grabs at the mantle o f John, who,in the capacity o f the pol itical ly excited Engl ishman, isduly making a fool of himself in public, give the finaltouch to the humor and real ity of the situation . Nowheredo you catch the mature Madox Brown at false pathosor picturesque attitudinizing. Think o f all the attitudesin which we have seen Francesca di Rimini and her lover ;and then look at the Grafton Gal lery picture of thatdeplorable, ridiculous pair, sprawl ing in a death agonyo f piteous surprise and discomfiture where the brutishhusband has j ust struck them down with his uncouthlymurderous weapon . You ask disgustedly where is thenoble lover

,the beauti ful woman, the Cain-l ike avenger ?

You exclaim at the ineptitude of the man who could omital l this , and simply make you feel as i f the incident hadreally happened and you had seen it—giving you, notyour notion o f the beauty and poetry of it, but the l i feand death of it . I remember once , when I was an

“artcritic

,

” and when Madox Brown’s work was only knownto me by a few drawings , treating Mr. Frederick Shieldsto a critical demonstration o f Madox Brown’s deficiencies ,pointing out in one of the drawings the lack of “beauty”

in some pair of elbows that had more of the wash tub

206


than o f The Toilet of Venus about them . Mr . Shieldscontrived without any breach of good manners to makeit q uite clear to me that he considered Madox Brown agreat painter and me a fool . I respected both convictionsat the time ; and now » I share them . Only, I plead inextenuation o f my fol ly that I had become so accustomedto take it for granted that what every Engl i sh painter wasdriving

‘

at was the sexual beautification and moral idealizationo f l i fe into something as unlike itself as possible ,that it did not at first occur to me that a painter coulddraw a plain woman for any other reason than that hecould not draw a pretty one .

Now turn to Mr . Watts , and you are instantly in avisionary world , in which li fe fades into mist, and theimaginings o f nobil ity and beauty with which w e investl i fe become embodied and vi sible . The gallery is one greattransfigurat ion: l i fe, death , love and mankind are nolonger themselves : they are glorified , sublimified, lovelified: the very draperies are either rippling lakes of colorharmony, or splendid banners like the flying cloak of

Titian ’s‘

Bacchus in the National Gallery. To pretendthat the world is like this is to l ive the heavenly li fe . Itis to lose the whole world and gain one ’s own soul . Untilyou have reached the point o f realizing what an astonishingly bad bargain that is you cannot doubt the sufficiencyo f Mr. Watts

’

s art, provided only your eyes are fineenough .to understand its language of l ine and color .Now i f you want to emulate my asinine achievementsas a critic on the occasion mentioned above in connexionwith Mr . Shields , you cannot do better than criticizeeither painter on the assumption that the other’s art i sthe right art . This will lead you by the shortest cut tothe conclusion either that Mr . Watts

’

s big picture of the

207


drayman and his horses is the only great work he everachieved, or that there is nothing endurable in MadoxBrown

’

s work except the embroidery and furniture,a few

passages of open-air painting, and such technical toursde force as his combination of the rtuosit ies o f theportrait styles of Holbein

,Antonio Moro

,and Rembrandt

in the imaginary portrait of Shakespeare . In which eventI can only wish you sense enough to see that your conelusion is not a proof of the futil ity of Watts or MadoxBrown , but a reductio ad absurdum of your own criticalmethod .

And now , w hat has all this to do with the drama ?

Even if it had nothing to do with.

it,reader

,the question

would be but a poor return for the pains I am taking toimprove your mind ; but let that pass . Have you neverbeen struck with the similarity between the familiar paroxysms of Anti-Ibsenism and the abuse

,the derision, the

angry distaste , the invincible misunderstanding provokedby Madox Brown ? Does it not occur to you that thesame effect has been produced by the same cause— thatwhat Ibsen has done is to take for this theme , not youth ,

beauty, moral ity, gentility, and propriety as conceived byMr . Smith of Brixton and Bayswater, but real l i fe takenas it is, with no more regard for poor Smith

’s dreamsand hypocrisies than the weather has for his shiny silkhat when he forgets his umbrel la ? Have you forgottenthat Ibsen w as once an ideal ist l ike Mr . Watts , and thatyou can read “The Vikings ,

” or “The Pretenders ,” or

Brand,

”or Emperor or Gal ilean in the New Gallery

as suitably as you can hang Madox Brown’s “Parisina

or “Death o f Harold” in the Diploma Gal lery at the RoyalAcademy ?

"

Or have you not noticed how the idealistswho are ful l of loathing for Ibsen ’s real istic plays will

208


To suppress instead of to express , to avoid instead o f toconquer, to ignore instead o f to heal : al l this , on thestage

,ends in turning a man into a stick for fear of creas

ing his tai lor ’s handiwork, and a woman into a hairdresser ’s window image lest she should be too actressyto be invited to a fashionable garden-party .

SHAKESPEARE IN MANCHESTER

20March, 1897.

Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespearean revival byMr. Louis Calvert at the Queen

’

s Theatre, Manchester.

H AKESPEARE is so much the word-musician thatmere practical intelligence, no matter how wel lprompted by dramatic instinct, cannot enable any

body to understand his works or arrive at a right execution of them without the guidance o f a fine ear . At theemotional climaxes in his works we find passages whichare Rossinian in their reliance on symmetry“

of melodyand impressiveness o f march to redeem poverty of meaning. In fact, we have got so far beyond Shakespeare asa man o f ideas that there is by this time hardly a famouspassage in his works that is considered fine on any otherground than that it sounds beautiful ly

,and awakens in

us the emotion that original ly expressed itsel f by itsbeauty. Strip it o f that beauty of sound by prosaic paraphrase, and you have nothing left but a platitude thateven an American professor o f ethics would blush to offerto his disciples . Wreck that beauty by a harsh , j arringutterance, and you will make your audience wince as i f

210


you were singing Mozart out of tune . Ignore it by“avoiding sing-song”— that is, ingeniously breaking theverse up so as to make it sound like prose, as the professional elocutionist prides himself on doing—and you arelanded in a stilted, monstrous jargon that has not eventhe prosaic merit of being intelligible . Let me give oneexample : Cleopatra

’s outburst at the death of Antony

“0 w ithered is the garland of the war,

The soldier’s pole is fallen: young boys and girlsAre level now w ith men: the odds is gone ,

And there is noth ing left remarkableBeneath the visiting moon.

”

This is not good sense—not even good grammar. I f youask what does it all mean, the reply must be that it meansj ust what its utterer feels . The chaos of its thought i s areflection of her mind, in which one can vaguely discerna wild illusion that all human dist inction perishes withthe gigantic distinction between Antony and the rest o fthe world . Now i t i s only in music, verbal or other, thatthe feeling which plunges thought into confusion can beartistically expressed . Any attempt to del iver such musicprosaically would be as absurd as an attempt to speak anoratorio of Handel ’s , repetitions and all . The right wayto declaim Shakespeare is the sing-song way. Meremetric accuracy is nothing. There must be beauty of tone,expressive inflection, and infinite variety o f nuance tosustain the fascination of the infinite monotony o f thechanting .

Miss Janet Achurch , now playing Cleopatra in Manchester, has a magnificent

”

voice , and is as ful l o f ideas asto vocal effects as to everything else on the stage . Themarch of the verse and the strenuousness of the rhetoric

211


stimulate her great artistic susceptibility powerfully : she

i s determined that Cleopatra shal l have . rings on herfingers and bells on her toes , and that she shall havemusic wherever she goes . Of the hardihood of car withwhich she carries out her original and often audaciousconceptions of Shakespearean music I am too utterly unnerved to give any adequate description . The laceratingdiscord of her wailings is in my tormented cars as Iwrite, reconciling me to the grave .

‘ It is as i f she hadbeen excited by the Hallelujah Chorus to dance on thekeyboard of a great organ with al l the stops pul led out .

I cannot—dare not— dwel l on i t . I admit thatWhen sheis using the rich middle o f her voice in a quite normaland unstudied way, intent only on the feel ing o f the passage, the effect leaves nothing to be desired ; but themoment she raises the pitch to carry out some deeplyplanned vocal masterstroke, or is driven by Shakespearehimsel f to attempt a purely musical execution of a passage for which no other sort of execution is possible , then- well then, hold on tightly to the elbows o f your stal l ,and bear it like a man . And when the feat is accompanied,as it sometimes is

,by bold experiments in facial ex

pressionwhich al l the passions o f Cleopatra, compl icatedby seventy-times-sevenfold demoniacal possession , couldbut faintly account for, the eye has to share the anguishof the ear instead of consol ing it with Miss Achurch ’

s

beauty . I have only seen the performance once ; and Iwould not unsee it agam 1f I could ; but none the less Iam a broken man after it . I may retain always an im

pression'

that I have actual ly looked on Cleopatra en

throned dead in her regal robes , with her hand on An

tony’s,and her awful eyes inhibiting the victorious Caesar .

I grant that this “resolution” o f the discord is grand and

212


physical energy, and untameable impetuosity and originality . Now this type has its limitations , one of them beingthat it has not the genius o f worthlessness

,and so cannot

present it on the stage otherwise than as comic depravityo r masterful wickedness . Adversity makes it superhuman

,

not subhuman, as it makes Cleopatra . When Miss Achurchcomes on one of the weak, treacherous, affected streaksin Cleopatra, she suddenly drops from an Egyptian warrior queen into a naughty English petite bourgeoise

,who

carries off a l ittle greediness and a little voluptuousnessby a very unheroic sort of prettiness . That is, she treatsit as a stroke of comedy ; and as she is not a comedian,the stroke of comedy becomes in her hands a bit offun . When the bourgeoise turns into a wild cat, andl iterally snarls and growls menacingly at the bearer ofthe news of Antony ’s marriage with Octavia, she is atleast more Cleopatra ; but when she masters herself, asMiss Achurch does , not in gipsy fashion, but by a heroicgrandiose act of self-mastery, quite foreign to the natureo f the “triple turned wanton” (as Mr. Calvert bowdlerizes it) of Shakespeare, she is presently perplexed byfresh strokes of comedy

H e’

s very know ing.

I do perceive ’

t : there’s nothing in her yetThe fellow has good judgment.

”

At which what can she do but relapse farcically into thebourgeoise again

,since it is not on the heroic side of her

to feel elegantly sel f-satisfied whi lst she is saying meanand silly things

,as the true Cleopatra does ? Miss

Achurch’

s finest feat in this scene was the terrible lookshe gave the messenger when he said, in dispraise o f

Octavia, And I do th ink she’s thirty”—Cleopatra being

214


of course much more . Only, as Miss Achurch had takengood care not to look more, the point was a little lost onManchester . Later on she is again quite in her heroic

element (and out of Cleopatra’s ) in making Antony fight

by sea . Her “I have sixty sails, Caesar none better ,” and

her overbearing of the counsels of Enobarbus andCanidius

to fight by land are effective , but effective in the way ofa Boadicea, worth ten guzzling Antonys . There is nosuggestion of the petulant folly of the spoiled beauty whohas not imagination enough to know that she will befrightened when the fighting begins . Consequently whenthe audience, already puzzled as to how to take Cleopatra ,learns that she has run away from the battle, and afterwards that she has sold Antony to Caesar, it does not knowwhat to think . The fact i s , Miss Achurch steals Antony

’sthunder and Shakespeare ’s thunder and Ibsen’s thunderand her own thunder so that she may ride the wh irlwindfor the evening ; and though this Walkiirenritt i s intenseand imposing, in spite of the discords, the lapses intofarce, and the failure in comedy and characterizationthough once or twice a really memorable effect is reached—yet there is not a stroke of Cleopatra in it ; and I submit that to bring an ardent Shakespearean like mysel fall the way to Manchester to see

“Antony and Cleopatra”

with Cleopatra left out , even with Brynhild-cum-NoraHelmer substituted, i s a very different matter to bringingdownsoft-hearted persons l ike Mr . Clement Scott andMr. William Archer, who have al lowed Miss Achurchto make Ibsen-and-Wagner pie of our poor Bard ’s historical masterpiece without a word of protestAnd yet all that I have said about Miss Achurch ’

s

Cleopatra cannot convey half the truth to those who havenot seen Mr . Louis Calvert’s Antony . It is on record

2 15


that Antony’s cooks put a fresh boar on the spit everyhour, so that he should never have to wait long for hisdinner. Mr. Calvert looks as i f he not only had the boarsput on the spit, but ate them . He is inexcusably fatMr. Bourchier is a sylph by comparison . You wi l l conclude, perhaps , that his fulness of habit makes him ridic

ulous as a lover. But not at all . I t is only your rhetoricaltragedian whose effectiveness depends on the oblat itudeof his waistcoat. Mr

'

. Calvert is a comedian—brimmingover with genuine humane comedy. His one real ly finetragic effect is the burst of laughter at the irony o f fatewith which, as he lies dying, he learns that the news o fCleopatra’s death, on the receipt of which he mortallywounded himself, i s only one of her theatrical sympathycatching lies . As a lover, he leaves his Cleopatra farbehind. His features are so pleasant, his manner so easy,his humor so genial and tolerant, and his portl iness so

frank and unashamed, that no good-natured woman couldresist him ; and so the topsiturvitude of the performanceculminates in the plainest evidence that Antony is theseducer of Cleopatra instead of Cleopatra of Antony.

Only at one moment was Antony’s girth awkward. WhenEros, who was a slim and rather bony young man, fel lon h is sword, the audience applauded sympathetically.

But when Antony in turn set about the Happy Despatch ,the consequences suggested to the imagination were so

awful that shrieks of horror arose in the pit ; and it wasa relief when Antony was borne off by four stalwartsoldiers, whose sinews cracked audibly as they heavedhim up from the floor.Here

,then, w e have Cleopatra tragic in her comedy,

and Antony comedic in his tragedy . We have Cleopatraheroical ly incapable of flattery or fl irtation, and Antony

2 16


arranged in Manchester. Modern managers should neverforget that if they take care of the minor actors the leading ones will take care of themselves .May I venture to suggest to Dr. Henry Watson thathis incidental music, otherwise irreproachable, i s in a fewplaces much too heavily scored to be effectively spokenthrough ? Even in the entr’actes the brass might beSpared in view of the brevity of the intervals and thealmost continuous strain for three hours on the ears ofthe audience . I f the music be revived later as a concertsuite , the wind can easily be restored .

Considering that the performance requires an effi cientorchestra and chorus

,plenty o f supernumeraries, ten or

eleven distinct scenes, and a cast o f twenty- four persons ,including tw o leading parts o f the first magnitude ; thatthe highest price charged for admission is three shi ll ings ;and that the run is l imited to eight weeks , the productionmust be counted a triumph o f management . There is notthe sl ightest reason to suppose that any London managercould have made a revival of Antony and Cleopatra”

more interesting. Certainly none of them would haveplanned that unforgettable statue death for Cleopatra, forwhich , I suppose , all Miss Achurch

’

s sins against Shakespeare will be forgiven her. I begin to have hopes of agreat metropol itan vogue for that lady now , since she hasat last done something that is thoroughly wrong frombeginning to end.

218

MEREDITH ON COMEDY

AnEssay on Comedy . By George Meredith. Westminster : Arch ibald Constable Co . 1897.

WENTY years ago Mr . George Meredi th delivereda “ lecture at the London Institution on Comedyand the Uses o f the Comic Spirit . It was after

wards publ ished in the “New Quarterly Magazine,

” andnow reappears as a brown buckram book, obtainable atthe inconsiderable price (considering the quality) o f fiveshil l ings . It is an excellent, even superfine, essay, byperhaps the highest living Engl ish authority on its sub

j cet . And Mr . Meredith is quite conscious of his eminence . Speaking o f the masters of the comedic spirit ( i fI call it, as he does , the Comic Spirit, this darkened gencration will suppo se me to refer to the animal spirits oftomfools and merryandrew s ) , he says ,

“Look there for

your unchallengeable upper class .” He should know ; forhe certainly belongs to it. A t

‘

the first page I recognizethe true connoisseur, and know that I have only to turnit to come on the great name of Moliére, who has hardlybeen mentioned in London during the last twenty yearsby the dramatic critics , except as representing a quainthabit o f the Comédie Francaise . That being so , why re

publish an essay on comedy now ? Who cares for comedyto-day —who knows what it i s —how many readers o fMr. Meredith’s perfectly straightforward and accurateaccount of the wisest and most exquisite of the arts wi l lsee anyth ing in the book but a bri lliant sally of table talkabout old plays, to be enj oyed, without practical application, as one o f the rockets in the grand firework displayof contemparary belles lettres ?

2 19


However, since the thing is done , and the book out , Itake leave to say that Mr . Meredith knows more aboutplays than about playgoers . “The English public

,

” hesays,

“have the basis of the comic in them : an esteem forcommon sense . This flattering i llusion does not dupeMr . Meredith completely ; for I notice that he adds

“taking them generally .

” But i f it were to be my last wordonearth I must tel l Mr. Meredith to his face that whetheryou take them generally or particularly—whether in thelump , or sectionally as playgoers , churchgoers , voters ,and what not— they are everywhere united and madestrong by the bond of their common nonsense, their invincible determination to tell and be told l ies about everything, and their power of dealing acquisitively and suc

cessfully with facts whilst keeping them , like disaffectedslaves

,rigidly in their proper place : that is , outside the

moral consciousness . The Engl ishman is the most successful man in the world simply because he values success—meaning money and social precedence—more than anything else, especially more than fine art, his attitude towards which

,culture-affectation apart, is one of half dif

fident , half contemptuous curiosity, and of course morethan clear-headedness

,spiritual insight, truth, justice, and

so forth . It is precisely this unscrupulousness and singleness o f purpose that constitutes the Engl ishman’s preeminent “common sense” ; and this sort of common sense,I submit to Mr . Meredith , i s not only not

“the basis of

the comic,” but actual ly makes comedy impossible, because

it would not seem l ike common sense at all i f it were notsel f-satisfiedly unconscious o f its moral and intellectualbluntness , whereas the function o f comedy is to dispel

such unconscousness by turning the searchlight of thekeenest moral and intellectual analys is right onto i t. Now

220


recognizes the fact, and takes the obvious step of puttingup poles in his streets to carry wires . This expedientnever occurs to the Briton . He wastes leagues of wireand does unheard-o f damage to property by tying hiswires and posts to such chimney stacks as he can beguilehouseholders into letting him have access to . Final ly,when it comes to electric traction, and the housetops areout of the question, he suddenly comes out in the novelcharacter of an amateur in urban picturesqueness

,and

declares that the necessary cable apparatus would spoilthe appearance of our streets . The streets of Nuremberg,the heights o f Fiesole

,may not be perceptibly the worse

for these contrivances ; but the beauty of TottenhamCourt Road is too sacred to be so profaned : to its lovelines the strained bus-horse and his offal are the onlyaccessories endurable by the beauty-loving Cockney eye.This is your common-sense Engl ishman . H is helplessness in the face of electricity is typical of his helplessnessin the face o f everything else that lies outside the set o fhabits he calls his Opinions and capacities . In the theatrehe is the same . It is not common sense to laugh at yourownprejudices : i t i s common sense to feel insulted whenany one else laughs at them . Besides , the Engl ishman isa serious person : that is , he is firmly persuaded that hisprejudices and stupidities are the vital material o f civilization, and that it is only by holding on to their moralprestige with the stiffest resolution that the world is savedfrom flying back into savagery and gorilladom , which healways conceives

,in spite of natural history, as a condi

tion of lawlessness and promiscuity , instead of, as itactual ly is

,the extremity

,long since grown unbearable ,

o f his own notions o f law and order, morality and conventional respectability . Thus he is a moralist, an as

222


cetic, a Christian, a truth-teller and a plain dealer byprofession and by conviction ; and it is wholly againstthi s conviction that, judged by his own canons , he findshimsel f in practice a great rogue, a liar, an unconscionablepirate

,a grinder o f the face o f the poor, and a libertine .

Mr . Meredith points out daintily that the cure for thissel f-trea ‘

sonable confusion and darkness is Comedy, whoseSpirit overhead wil l “look humanely malign and cast anoblique light on them , fol lowed by vol leys of silverylaughter.” Yes

,Mr . Meredith ; but suppose the patients

have “common sense” enough not to want to be cured !Suppose they realize the immense commercial advantageof keeping their ideal li fe and their practical business li fein two separate conscience-tight compartments , whichnothing but “the Comic Spirit” can knock into one ! Suppose

,therefore , they dread the Comic Spirit more than

anything else in the world , shrinking from its“i llumina

tion,and considering its “silvery laughter” in execrable

taste ! Surely in doing so they are only carrying out thecommon-sense view , in which an encouragement and en

j oyment of comedy must appear as si lly and suicidal and“unEnglish

” as the conduct o f the man w ho sets fire tohis own house for the sake o f seeing the flying sparks ,the red glow in the sky, the fantastic shadows on thewalls , the excitement of the crowd , the gleaming chargeof the engines , and the dismay of the neighbors . Nodoubt the day will come when w e shall deliberately burna London street every day to keep our city up to date inhealth and handsomeness , with no more misgiving as toour common sense than w e now have when sending our

clothes to the laundry every week . When that day comes ,perhaps comedy will be popular too ; for after all thefunction of comedy, as Mr . Meredith after twenty years

’

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further consideration is perhaps by this time ripe to admit, i s nothing less than the destruction o f old-establ ishedmorals . Unfortunately, to -day such iconoclasm can betolerated by our playgoing citizens only as a counsel ofdespair and pessimism . They can find a dreadful j oy init when it is done ceriously, or even grimly and terriblyas they understand Ibsen to be doing it ; but that it Shouldbe done with levity

,with si lvery laughter l ike the crack

l ing o f thorns under a pot,i s too scandalously wicked ,

too cynical , too heartlessly shocking to be borne. Con

sequently our plays must either be exploitations of old

establ ished morals or tragic challengings o f the order o f

Nature . Reductions to absurdity, however logical ; banterings, however kindly ; i rony, however del icate ; merriment, however silvery , are out of the question in matterso f moral ity, except among men with a natural appetitefor comedy which must be satisfied at all costs andhazards : that i s to say, not among the Engl ish playgoingpubl ic, which positively dislikes comedy .

No doubt it is patriotically indulgent of Mr. Meredithto say that Our English school has not clearly imaginedsociety, and that

“o f the mind hovering above con

gregatedmen and women it has imagined nothing.

” Butis he quite sure that the audiences of our Engl ish schooldo no t know too much about society and “congregatedmen and women” to encourage any exposures from “thevigilant Comic

,

” with its “thoughtful laughter,” its

“obl ique i l lumination , and the rest of it ? May it notoccur to the purchasers o f hal f-guinea stal ls that it is badenough to have to put up with the pryings o f FactoryInspectors

,Publ ic Analysts, County Counci l Inspectors ,

Chartered Accountants and the l ike, without admittingthis Comic Spirit to look into still more delicate matters ?


charm , and intent only on the dramatic interest , realisticillusion, and comic force of her work . And she avoidsthe conventional gesture-code of academic Ital ian pantomime, depending on popularly graphic methods throughout . The result is that the piece is now much fuller ofincident, much more exciting in the second act (hithertothe weak point) and much more vivid than before . Otherchanges have helped to bring this about . Jacquinet , nolonger ridiculously condemned to clothe a Parisian threecard-trick man in the attire of the fashionable lover in“L

’

Enfant Prodigue,” appears in hi s proper guise with

such success that it is difficult to bel ieve that he is thesame person . Miss Ella Dee is a much prettier Louisette,as prettiness is reckoned in London

,than her predecessor,

whom She also surpasses in grace and variety o f expression . Litini is a brilliant Fifine—the brevity of the partis regretted for the first time ; and Rossi , though he isno better than before, probably would be if he had leftany room for improvement . The band is excellent, andthe music clever andeffective, though it has none of thosetopical allusions which are so popular here—strangelypopular, considering that the public invariably misses nineout of ten of them (w ho, for instance, has noticed thatentr’acte in “Saucy Sally” in which the bassoon plays al lmanner o f rol l icking nautical airs as florid counterpointsto “

Tom Altogether the “play withoutwords” is now at its best . One must be a critic to understand the blessedness o f going to the theatre without having to listen to slipshod dialogue and aff ectedly fashionable or nasally stagy voices . Merely to see plastic figuresand expressive looks and gestures is a delicious noveltyto me ; but I believe some of the public rather resenthaving to pay full price for a play without words, exactly

226


as they resent having to pay for a doctor’s advice withoutgetting a bottle of nasty medicine along with it. Someo f these unhappy persons may be observed waiting allthrough the performance for the speaking to begin, andretiring at last with loud exp ressions o f disappointmentat having been sold by the management. For my part,I delight in these wordless plays , though I am consciouso f the difficulty of making any but the most threadbarethemes intelligible to the public without words . In myyouth the diffi culty could have been got over by takingsome story that every one knew ; but nowadays nobodyknows any stories . If you put the “Sleeping Beauty” on

the stage in dumb Show , the only th ing you could dependon the whole house knowing about her would be herprivate name and address , her salary, her engagementsfornext year . her favorite pastimes, and the name of herpet dog.

MR. PINERO ON TURNING FORTY

The Physician: a new play of modern life in fouracts, by H enry Arthur Jones. Criterion Theatre,25 March, 1897.

The Princess and the Butterfly, or The Fantastics

anoriginal comedy infive acts, by Arthur W. Pinero .

S t . James’s Theatre, 29 March, 1895.

HEN I was a fastidious youth, my elders, evereager to confer bad advice on me and toword it with disgusting homeliness, used to

tell me never to throw away dirty water until I got inclean . To which I would reply that as I had only one

bucket, the thing was impossible . So unti l I grew middleaged and sordid, I acted on the philosophy o f Bunyan’scouplet :

A man there w as, tho’

some did count him mad,

The more he -cast away, the more he had.

”

Indeed, in the matter of ideals , faiths , convictions and thel ike , I was of opinion that Nature abhorred a vacuum ,

and that you might empty your bucket boldly with thefullest assurance that you would find it ful ler than everbefore you had time to set it down again . But hereinI youthful ly deceived myself. I grew up to find thegenteel world ful l of persons with empty buckets . NowThe Physician is a man with an empty bucket . “By

God! he says (he doesn’t bel ieve in God ) ,

“I don ’t believe there ’s in any London Slum , or j ai l , or workhouse,a poor wretch with such a horrible despair in his heartas I have to-day. I tel l you I’ve caught the disease o f ourtime

, of our society, of our civilization—middle age, dis

228

Dramat ic Opinions and Essays"Romeo and Juliet” as, in comparison, dazzling lights ofscience .And now , as if it were not bad enough to have Mr .Jones in th is state of mind, we have Mr . Pinero, w ho wasborn, as I learn from a recent biographic work o f reference, in 1855, quite unable to get away from the sametragic preoccupation with the horrors o f middle age . Hehas launched at us a play in five acts- two and a hal f ofthem hideously superfluous

—all about being over forty .

The heroine is forty , and can talk about nothing else .

The hero is over forty, and is blind to every other factin the universe . Having this topic o f conversation incommon, they get engaged in order that they may saveone another from being seduced by the attraction of youthinto foolish marriages . They then fal l in love, She witha fiery youth of twenty-eight, he with a meteoric girl ofeighteen . Up to the last moment I confess I had sufli

cient confidence in Mr . Pinero ’s saving sense bf humorto believe that he would give the verdict against himsel f,and admit that the meteoric girl was too young for ~ thehero ( twenty-seven years discrepancy) and the heroinetoo old for the fiery youth ( thirteen years discrepancy ) .

But no : he gravely decided that the heart that lovesnever ages ; and now perhaps he will write us anotherdrama, limited strictly to three acts, with , as heroine,the meteoric girl at forty with her husband at sixtyseven, and, as hero, the fiery youth at forty-nine withhis wife at sixty-two .

Mr . Henry Arthur Jones is reconciled to his own fate ,though he cannot bear to see it overtake a woman . HearLady Val in his play ! “I smell autumn ; I scent it fromafar. I ask myself how many years shall I have a manfor my devoted slave . Oh, my God, Lewin [she is

230


an Atheist] , i t never can be worth while for a woman tolive one moment after She has ceased to be loved .

” This ,I admit

,is as bad as Mr . Pinero : the speech is actually

paraphrased by Mr . St . Roche in the St . James ’s play.

But mark the next sentence : “And you men have thelaugh of us . Age doesn’t wither you or stale your insolent

,victorious, sel f-satisfied, smirking, commonplace

durability ! Oh, you brutes , I hate you al l , because you’re

warranted to wash and wear for fifty years .” Observe,fifty years , not forty . I turn again to my book of reference, and find, as I expected , that Mr. Jones w as born in1851. I discover also that I myself was born in 1856.

And this is ’

97 . Well, my ownopinion is that S ixty is theprime of life for a man . Cheer up, Mr. Pinero : courage,Henry Arthur ! “What though the grey do somethingmingle with our younger brown” (excuse my quotingShakespeare ) , the world is as young as ever . Go lookat the people in Oxford Street : they are always the same

As regards any conscious philosophy of l i fe , I ambound to say that there is not so much ( i f any ) diff erencebetween Mr. Jones and Mr . Pinero as the very wide di fterences between them in other respects would lead usto suppose . The moment their dramatic inventivenessflags

,and they reach the sentimental ly reflective interval

between genuine creation and the breaking off work unti lnext day, they fall back on the tw o great Shakespeareangrievances—namely, that we cannot l ive for ever and thatl i fe is not worth living . And then they strike up the oldtunes—“

Out , out , brief candle !” “Vani tas vanitatum ,

“To what end ?” and so on[ But in their fertile , l ive moments they are as unlike as two men can be in the sameprofession . At such time Mr . Pinero has no views at

231


all . Our novelists, especially those of the ThackerayTrollope period, have created a fictitious world for him ;and it is about this world that he makes up stage storiesfor us . If he observes l ife, he does so as a gentlemanobserves the picturesqueness of a gipsy . He presentshis figures coolly, clearly, and just as the originals l iketo conceive themselves— for instance, his ladies and gentlemen are not real ladies and gentlemen , but ladies andgentlemen as they themselves (mostly modell ing themselves on fiction ) aim at being ; and so Bayswater andKensington have a sense o f being understood by Mr .Pinero. Mr . Jones, onthe other hand, works passionatelyfrom the real . By throwing himself sympathetically intohis figures he gives them the stir o f l ife ; but he alsooften raises their energy to the intensity o f his own, andconfuses their feelings with the revolt of his own againstthem . Above all , by forcing to the utmost their aspectas they real ly are as against their pose, he makes theiroriginals protest violently that he cannot draw them—a

protest formerly made, on exactly the same grounds ,against Dickens . For example , Lady Val in

“The Physician” i s a study of a sort o f clever fashionable womannow current ; but it is safe to say that no clever fashionable woman, nor any admirer of clever fashionable w omen, will ever admit the truth or good taste o f the l ikeness .And yet she is very careful ly studied from l i fe , and onlydeparts from it flatteringly in respect o f a certain energyo f vision and intensity of conscience that belong to Mr .Jones and not in the least to hersel f.Compare with Lady Val the Princess Pannonia inMr. Pinero’s play . You will be struck instantly withthe comparative gentlemanliness o f Mr . Pinero . Heseems to say,

“Dear lady, do not be alarmed : I will

232


nearly twenty persons have to be introduced to listen tothem . The resultant exhibition of High Life AboveStairs is no doubt del ightful to the people who had ratherread the fashionable intell igence than my articles . Tome not eventhe del ight o f playing Peeping Tom whilstPrincess Pannonia was getting out of bed and flatteringme with a vain hope that the next item would be herbath, could reconcile me to tw o hours of it . I f the womenhad worn some tolerable cap-and-apron uniform I couldhave borne it better ; but those dreadful dresses , mostlyout of character and out of complexion—I counted ninefailures to four ' successes—upset my temper, which wasnot restored by a witless caricature of Mr . Max Beerbohm (would he had written it himself or by the spectacle o f gi lded youth playing with toys whilst Sir GeorgeLamorant put ona fool ’s cap and warned them that theywould all be forty-five presently, or even by the finaltableau , unspeakably Sad to the British mind, of the hostand hostess retiring for the night to separate apartmentsinstead of tucking themselves respectably and domestically into the same feather bed . Yet who shal l say thatthere is no comedy in the spectacle of Mr . Pinero moralizing, and the publ ic taking his reflections seriously ? Heis much more depressing when he makes a gentlemanthrow a glass o f water at another gentleman in a drawing-room , thereby binding the other gentleman in honorto attack his assai lant in the street with a walking stick ,whereupon the twain go to France to fight a duel forall the world as i f they were at the Surrey Theatre .However, when this is over the worst is over . Mr . Pinero gets to business at about ten o ’clock, and the playbegins in the middle of the third act—a good, old-fashioned, well-seasoned bit o f sentimental drawing-room

234


fiction, daintily put together, and brightening at the endinto a really l ighthearted and amusing act of artificialcomedy.

'

So , though it is true that the man who goesto the St. James ’s Theatre now at wi l l wish he hadnever been born , none the less will the man who goesat spend a very pleasant evening.

The two authors have not been equally fortunate inrespect of casting. Half Mr. Jones ’s play— the women ’shalf— i s obl iterated in performance His Edana is a sterling

,convinced girl-enthusiast . Her face,

” says the

Doctor,“glowed like a live coal . This sort of charac

terization cannot be eff ected on the stage by dialogue .Enthusiasts are magnetic, not by what they say, or evenwhat they do, but by how they say and do it. Mr. Joneswould write “yes” and “no but it rested with the actresswhether the affirmation and denial Should be that of anenthusiast or not . Edana at the Criterion is played byMiss Mary Moore . Now Miss Moore is a dainty lightcomedian ; and her intelligence, and a certain power ofexpressing grief rather touchingly and prettily

,enable

her to take painful parts on occasion without makingherself ridiculous . But they do not enable her to playan enthusiast . Consequently her Edana is a simple substitution of what She can do for what she is required todo . The play is not only weakened by this—all plays getweakened somewhere when they are performed— it i sdangerously confused, because Edana, instead of beinga stronger character than Lady Val

,and therefore con

ceivably able to draw the physician away from her, isj ust the sort of person who would stand no chance againsther with such a man . To make matters worse

,Lady

Val i s played by Miss Marion Terry, who is in every particular from her heels to her hairpins , exactly . what Lady

235


Val could not be, her qualities being even more fatalto the part than her faults . A more hopeless pair o f

misfits has never befallen an author. On the other hand ,Mr . Jones has been exceptional ly fortunate in his men .

Mr. Al fred Bishop’s parson and Mr . J . G. Taylor’sStephen Gurdon are perfect . Mr. Thalberg does whatis wanted to set the piece going on the rising o f the curtain with marked abil ity . The easy parts—which includesome racy vi llage studies—are wel l played. Mr . LeslieKenyon , as Brooker, has the tact that i s all the part requires; and the physician is played with the greatest easeby Mr. Wyndham himself, who wil l no doubt draw allHarley Street to learn what a consulting-room mannercan be in the hands o f an artist. The performance as awhole is exceptional ly fine, the S ize of the theatre admitting of a del icacy o f handl ing without which Mr.Jones ’s work loses hal f its sincerity .

In “The Princess matters are better balanced . Thereis a fearful waste of power : out o f twenty-nine performers , o i whom half are accustomed to play importantparts in London, hardly Six have anything to .

do that couldnot be sufli ciently well done by nobodies . Mr. Pineroseems to affirm his supremacy by being extravagant inhis demands for the Sake of extravagance ; and Mr. Alexander plays up to him with an equal ly high hand by beingno less extravagant in his compliances . So the piece isat al l events not underplayed ; and it has crowned thereputation o f Miss Fay Davi s

,whose success , the most

sensational achieved at the St . James’s Theatre since thatof Mrs . Patrick Campbell as Paula Tanqueray, i s a success o f cultivated Skil l and sel f-mastery on the artist’spart

,and not one of the mereaccidents of the stage . Miss

Nei lson, ever fair and fortunate, puts a pleasant face on

236

MADAME SANS-GENE

Madame Sans-Gene : a comedy in a prologue and

three acts. By MM. Sardou and Moreau. Trans

latedby J. Comyns Carr. Lyceum Theatre, 10 Apri l,1896.

T IS rather a nice point whether Miss Ellen Terryshould be forgiven for sai l ing the Lyceum ship intothe shal lows of Sardoodledom for the sake of Mad

ame Sans-Géne. But hardly any controversy has arisenon this point : every one seems content to discuss howMiss Ellen Terry can bring hersel f to impersonate so

vulgar a character . And the verdict i s that she has surmounted the difli culty wonderful ly. In that verdict I cantake no part, because I do not admit the existence of thedifficulty . Madame Sans-Gene is not a vulgar person ;and Miss Ellen Terry knows it. No doubt most peoplewill not agree with Miss Ellen Terry . But i f most peoplecould see everything that Miss Ellen Terry sees , theywould al l be Ellen Terries instead o f what they are .I know that it wil l not be conceded to me without astruggle that a washerwoman who Spits on her iron andtells her employees to “stir their stumps” is not vulgar .Let me, therefore, ask those persons of unquestionedfashion who have taken to bicycling, what they do whenthey find their pneumatic tyres collapsing ten miles fromanywhere, and wish to ascertain, before undertaking theheavy labor o f looking for a puncture, whether the valveis not leaking. The workman’s way of doing this is notrade secret . He puts a film o f moisture on the end ofthe valve, and watches whether that film is converted intoa bubble by an escape of air . And he gets the moisture

238


exactly where Madame Sans-Géne gets the moisture forher flat iron . It may be that the washerwoman of thefuture

,as soon as a trebling of her wages and a halving

o f her hours of labor enable her to indulge in a li ttlefastidiousness

,wil l hang a scent bottle with a spray dif

fuser at her Chatelaine, though even then I doubt i f thefashionable cycl i st wil l prefer the resources of civil izationto those of nature when nobody is looking. But by thattime the washerwoman wi l l no doubt smoke cigarettes ,as to which habit of tobacco smoking, in what form soeverit be practised , I will say nothing more than that thepeople w ho indulge in it, whether male or female , haveclearly no -right to complain o f the manners o f peoplewho spit on flat i rons . Indeed I wi l l go further, anddeclare that a civil ization which enjoins the deliberatestiffening of its shirts with white mud and the hotpressingthereof in order that men may look in the evening likesi lhouettes cut out of mourning paper , has more to learnthan to teach in the way of good manners (that is , goodsense ) from Madame Sans-Gene .

A S to“sti r your stumps,

” that i s precisely what an idealduchess would say i f she had to bustle a laundry , andhad tact and genial ity enough to make a success o f it . Itis true that she might as easily say,

“More diligence ,ladies , please

”

; but she would not say it, because idealduchesses do not del iberately say stupid and underbredthings . Indeed our military officers

,whose authority in

matters of social propriety nobody will dispute , are aptto push the Sans-Gene style to extremes in smarteningthe movements of Volunteers and others in reviews andinspections, to say nothing of the emergencies of actualwarfare .

Concerning Madame Sans-Géne’s use of slang, which

239


she carries to the extent o f remarking, when there is aquestion of her husband being compelled by the Emperorto divorce her and marry a more aristocratic but slendererwoman

,

“You l ike ’em crumby, don’t you P”

, I can onlysay that her practice is in accord with that of the finestmasters o f language . I have known and conversed withmen whose command of Engl ish

,and sense o f beauty

and fitness in the use o f it,had made them famous . They

all revelled in any sort o f language that was genuinelyvernacular, racy and graphic . They were j ust as capableas Madame Sans-Géne of cal l ing a nose a snout or acertain sort of figure crumby ; and between such literarysolemnities as “magistrate” or

“pol iceman” and the slang“beak” or the good English “copper” they would nothave hesitated for a moment on fami liar occasions . Andthey would have been outraged in the last degree hadthey been represented as talk ing o f

“bereavements ,“melancholy occasions

,

”or any of the scores of preten

tious insincerities,affectations and l iterary flourishes of

tombstone,rastrum

,shop-catalogue, foreign-pol icy-lead

ing-article Engl ish which Miss Terry could pass off without a word of remonstrance as high-class conversation .

It is further objected that Miss Terry drops into thedialect of Whitechapel

,or rather a sort of general ized

country dialect with some Whitechapel tricks picked upand grafted on to it. Here I am coming on dangerousground ; for it is plain that criticism must sooner or laterspeak out fiercely about that hideous vulgarity o f stagespeech from which the Lyceum has long been almost ouronly refuge . It seems to me that actors and actressesnever dream nowadays of learning to speak . What theydo is this . Since in their raw native state they are usually

quite out of the question as plausible representatives o f

240


l ike a Scotchman, the American like an American, andso on. It should be so on the stage also, both in classical plays and representations of modern society, thoughof course it is the actor’s business to assume dialects anddrop or change them at wi l l in character parts

,and to be

something o f a virtuoso in Speech in al l parts . A verymoderate degree of accomplishment in this directionwould make an end of stage smart speech

,which

,l ike

the got-up Oxford mince and draw] of a fool ish curate,i s the mark of a snob . Indeed, the brutal truth is thatthe Engl ish theatre is at present suffering severely froman epidemic of second-rate snobbery . From that, at least,we are spared whilst Miss Ellen Terry and Sir HenryIrving are on the stage.It is natural for those who think this snobbishness areal ly fine and genuine accompl ishment to conclude thateverybody must lust after it, and, consequently, thatMadame Sans-Géne’s neglect to acquire it in Spite of heropportunities as Duchess of Dantzig is incredible . Now

far be it from me to deny that Sardou’

s assumption thatthe Duchess has not learnt to make a curtsey or to puton a low -necked dress must be taken frankly as an impossible pretext for a bit of clowning which may or maynot be worth its cost in verisimil itude . But, apart fromthis inessential episode, the idea that Catherine , beinghappily “Madame Sans-Gene ,

” should del iberately manufacture herself into a commonplace Court lady—a personwith about as much pol itical influence or genuine intimacywith ministers and princes as an upper housemaid inDowning Street—is to assume that She

.

would gain bythe exchange

,and that her ideals and ambitions are those

o f an average sol icitor’s wife .

Here,then, you have the secret of Madame Sans-Gene

242


and Miss Terry’s apparent condescension to a vulgarpart . There are a few people in the world with suffi cientvitality and strength o f character to get to close quarterswith uncommon people quite independently of the drillwhich qualifies common people (whatever their rank ) tofigure in the retinue which is indispensable to the stateo f kings and ministers . And there are a few actresseswho are able to interpret such exceptional people becausethey are exceptional themselves . Miss Terry is such anexceptional actress ; and there the whole wonder Of thebusiness begins and ends . Granted this one rare qualifi

cation, the mere execution is nothing. The part does nottake Miss Terry anywhere near the limit of her powerson the contrary

,it embarrasses her occasionally by its

crudity . Rejane was al so well within her best as Catherine ;so that a comparison of the tw o artists i s like comparingtw o athletes throwing the hammer ten feet . Miss Terry ’sdifficulties are greater, because she has to make shift witha translation instead o f the original text, and because hersupport, especial ly in the scenes with Lefebvre, is not sohelpful as that enjoyed by Rejane . Also she coaxed theclowning scene through better than Rejane and herretort upon the Queen of Naples , though it was perfectlygenial and simple and laundress-like , set me wonderingwhy we have never heard her del iver Marie Stuart ’sretort upon Elizabeth in Schi l ler ’s play , a speculationwhich Rejane certainly never suggested to me, and whichI admit is not to the point . But, if there is to be anycomparison

,i t must, as I have said, take us outside

“Madame Sans-Géne ,

” into which both actresses put as muchacting as it will hold .

Sardou’

s Napoleon is rather better than Madame Tussaud ’s, and that is all that can be said for it . It is easy

243


to take any familiar stage figure, make him up as Napoleon, put into his mouth a few allusions to the time whenhe was a poor young artil lery officer in Paris and toFriedland or Jena, place at his elbow a Sherlock Holmescalled Fouché and so forth , j ust as in another dress , andwith Friedland changed to Pharsal ia, you would have astage Jul ius Caesar ; but if at the end of the play the personage so dressed up has felt nothing and seen nothingand done nothing that might not have been as appropriately felt, seen and done by his valet, then the fact thatthe hero is cal led Emperor is no more important than thefact that the theatre, in nine cases out of ten, i s cal ledthe Theatre Royal . On the other hand, if you get asyour hero a prince of whom nobody ever hear beforesay Hamlet— and make him genuinely distinguished, thenhe becomes as well known to us as Marcus Aurel ius .Sardou

’

s Napoleon belongs to the first variety . He isnothing but the j ealous husband of a thousand fashionable dramas , talking Buonapartiana. Sir Henry Irvingseizes the opportunity to Show what can be done with anempty part by an old stage hand . The result is that heproduces the i llusion o f the Emperor behind the part :one takes it for granted that his abstinence from anyadequately Napoleonic deeds and utterances is a mattero f pure forbearance onhis part . It is an amusingly craftybit o f business , and reminds one pleasantly of the daysbefore Shakespeare was let loose on Sir Henry Irving’stalent .Mr. Comyns Carr’s translation is much too l iterary .

Catherine does not speak like a woman of the peopleexcept when she is helping hersel f out with ready-madelocutions in the manner of Sancho Panza . After a longspeech consisting of a bundle of such locutions padded

244


too destructive to the imagination and descriptive facultyto incur the penalty of criticism . In Act III . (requiring,i t will be remembered, the shifting landscape from

two new cloths specially painted, and goodenough to produce a tolerable illusion of snowy pinewoodand midnight mountain with proper accessories

,were

made ridiculous by a bare acre of wooden floor and onlyone set of wings for the two . When I looked at that

,

and thought o f the eminence o f the author and the greatness of his work, I felt ashamed . What Sir Henry Irvingand Mr . George Alexander and Mr . Wilson Barrett feelabout it I do not know4—ou the whole, perhaps, not altogether displeased to see Ibsen belittled . For my part,I beg the New Century Theatre, when the next Ibsenplay is ready for mounting, to apply to me for assistance .

I f I have a ten-pound note , they shall have it : i f not, Ican at least lend them a couple of decent chairs . I cannotthink that Mr . Massingham, Mr. Sutro, and Mr . Wil l iamArcher would have grudged a few such contributionsfrom their humble cots on this occasion i f they had nothoped that a display of the most sordid poverty wouldhave shamed the public as it shamed me . Unfortunatelytheir moral lesson is more likely to discredit Ibsen thanto fill the New Century coffers . They have spent eithertoo l ittle or too much . When Dr . Furnivall performedBrowning’s “Luria” in the lecture theatre at UniversityCollege with a couple of curtains , a chair borrowed fromthe board-room , and the actors in their ordinary eveningdress , the absence of scenery was as completely forgottenas i f we had al l been in the Globe in Shakespeare ’s time .

But between that and an adequate scenic equipment thereis no middle course . It is highly honorable to the pioneersof the drama that they are poor ; but in art, what poverty

245


can only do unhandsomely and stingi ly it should not doat all . Besides , to be quite frank, I simply do not bel ievethat the New Century Theatre could not have affordedat least a better couple o f chairs .I regret to say that the shortcomings of the scenerywere not mitigated by imaginative and ingenious stagemanagement . Mr . Vernon ’s stage management is veryactor- like : that i s to say, it is directed, not to secure themaximum o f illusion for the play, but the maximum of

fairness in distributing good places on the stage to themembers o f the cast . Had he been selfish enough, assome actor-managers are accused of being, to managethe stage so as to secure the maximum of prominencefor himself, the eff ect would probably have justified him ,

since he plays Borkman. But his sense of equity is evidently stronger than his vanity ; for he takes less thanhis share of conspicuity , repeatedly standing patientlywith his back to the audience to be declaimed at downthe stage by Miss Robins or Miss Ward, or whoever elsehe deems entitled to a turn . Alas ! these conceptions o ffai rness , honorable as they are to Mr . Vernon

’s manhood,are far too simply quantitative for artistic purposes . Thebusiness o f the stage manager of “John Gabriel Borkman” is chiefly to make the most of the title part ; andi f the actor o f that part is too modest to do that for himsel f, some one else Should stage-manage . Mr . Vernonperhaps pleased the company, because he certainly didcontrive that every one o f them should have the centreo f the stage to himself or hersel f whenever they had achance of sel f-assertion ; but as this act of green-roomjustice was placed before the naturalness of the representation, the actors did not gain by it, whilst the play suffered greatly .

247


Mr. Vernon, I suspect, was also hampered by a ratherold-fashioned technical conception o f the play as a tragedy. Now the traditional stage management o f tragedyignores realism—even the moderate degree o f realismtraditional in comedy . It lends itsel f to people talkingat each other rhetorically from opposite Sides of the stage,taking long sweeping walks up to their “points

,

” strikingattitudes in the focus of the public vision with an artificiali ty which, instead of being concealed is not only disclosedbut insisted on, and being affected 1n all their j oints byemotions which a fine comedian conveys by the faintestpossible inflection o f tone or eyebrow .

“John GabrielBorkman

”is no doubt technical ly a tragedy because it

ends with the death of the leading personage in it . Butto stage-manage or act it rhetorical ly as such is l ikedrawing a Dance of Death in the style of Caracci or GiulioRomano. Clearly the required style is the homely-imaginative, the realistic- fateful— in a word, the Gothic . Iam aware that to demand Gothic art from stage managersdominated by the notion that their business i s to adaptthe exigencies of stage-etiquette to the tragic and comiccategories of our pseudo-classical dramatic tradition isto give them an order which they can but dimly understand and cannot execute at al l ; but Mr . Vernon is nomere routineer : he is a man of ideas . After al l , SirHenry Irvmg ( in his

“Bells” style ) , M . Lugue-P06, Mr.Richard Mansfield, and Mr. Charles Charrington havehit this mark (whilst missing the pseudo-classic one )nearly enough to Show that it i s by no means unattainable .

Failing the services of these geniuses , I beg the convent ional stage manager to treat Ibsen as comedy . That wil lnot get the business right ; but it will be better than thetragedy plan .

248


rings false at once. Here is an examplch -the most striking in the play

ELLA [Instrong inward emotion] . Pity ! Ha ha ! I have neverknown pity since you deserted me. I was incapable o f feelingit . If a poor starved child came into my kitchen,

'

shivering and

crying, and begging a morsel o f food, I let the servants look toit . I never felt any desire to take the child to myself, to warm

it at my own hearth , to have the pleasure of seeing it eat and

be sat isfied. And yet I wasn’t like that w hen I was young : that

I remember clearly. It is you that have created an empty, barrendesert w ithin me—and w ithout me too !

What is there in this speech that might not occur inany popular novel or drama of sentiment written sinceQueen Anne ’s death ? I f Miss Mi llward were to introduce it into “Black Eyed Susan , the Adelphi pit wouldaccept it with moist eyes and without the faintest suSpi

cion o f Ibsen . But El la Rentheim does not stop there .

“You have cheated me of a mother ’s j oy and happinessin life,

”she continues ,

“and of a mother’s sorrows andtears as well . And perhaps that is the heaviest part o fthe loss to me . It may be that a mother

'

s sorrows andtears were what I needed most . Now here the Adelphipit would be puzzled ; for here Ibsen speaks as the GreatMan—one whose moral consciousness far transcends thecommon huckstering conception of l i fe as a trade in happiness in which sorrows and tears represent the badbargains and joys and happiness the good ones . And hereMiss Robins suddenly betrays that She is an Ibsenitewithout being an Ibsenist . The genuine and touchingtone o f sel f-pity suddenly turns into a perceptibly artificialsnivel ( forgive the rudeness o f the word ) and thesentence which is the most moving in the play providedit comes out simply. and truthful ly, is declaimed as a sen

250


timental paradox which has no sort of reality or convietion for the actress . In th is failure Miss Robins wasentirely consistent with her ownsuccesses . As the womanin revolt against the intolerable slavery and inj ustice ofideal “womanl iness” (Karin and Martha in

“Pi llars o fSociety”) or against the man treating her merely as hissexual prey (Mariana in the recital o f her mother

’s fate )her success has had no bounds except those set by thecommercial disadvantages at which the performanceswere undertaken . A S the impetuous , imagi native NewWoman in her first youth, free, unscrupulous throughignorance, demanding of l ife that it shall be

“thrill ing,

and terribly dangerous to impressionable Master Builderswho have put on l i fe ’s chains without learning its lessons , She has succeeded heart and soul , rather by beingthe character than by understanding it. In representingpoignant nervous phenomena in their purely physicalaspect, as in

“Alan’s Wife” and “Mrs . Lessingham ,

” Shehas set up the infection o f agony in the theatre withlacerating intensity by the vividness of her reproduct ionof its symptoms . But in sympathetic parts properly so

called, where wisdom o f heart, and sense of identity andcommon cause with others—in short, the parts w e shallprobably cal l religious as soon as w e begin to gain someglimmering of what religion means—Miss Robins is onlySympathetic as a flute is sympathetic : that is, she has apretty tone, and can be played on with an aff ectation of

sentiment but there is no reality, no sincerity in it . Andso Ella Rentheim ,

so far as she is sympathetic, eludes her .The fact is, Miss Robins is too young and too ferociouslyindividual istic to play her . Ella’s grievances came outwell enough , also her romance, and some of those kindlyamenities of hers—notably her amiable farewell to Er

251


hart ; but o f the woman who understands that she hasbeen robbed of her due of tears and sorrow, o f the womanwho sees that the crazy expedition through the snowwith Borkman is as wel l worth trying as a hopeless returnto the fireside, there is no trace, nothing but a few in

dications that Miss Robins would have very l ittle patiencewith such wisdom if She met it in real l i fe.Mr . Vernon’s Borkman was not i ll acted ; only, as itwas not Ibsen’s Borkman, but the very reverse and negation of him , the better Mr . Vernon acted the worse it wasfor the play . He was a thoroughly disillusioned elderlyman o f business, patient and -sensible rather than kindly,and with the sort o f strength that a man derives fromthe experience that teaches him his l imits . I think Mr.Vernon must have studied him in the north of Ireland,where that type reaches perfection . Ibsen’s Borkman,on the contrary, is a man of the most energetic imagination, whose illusions feed on his misfortunes , and whoseconception of his own power grows hyperbol ical andNapoleonic in his solitude and impotence . Mr. Vernon’sexcursion into the snow was the aberration of a respectable banker in whose brain a vessel had suddenly burstthe true Borkmanmeets the fate of a vehement dreamerwho has for thirteen years been deprived of that dailycontact with reality and responsibility without whichgenius inevitably produces unearthliness and insanity.

Mr . Vernon was as earthly and sane as a man need beuntil he went for his walk in the snow, and a Borkmanwho is that is necessarily a trifle dul l . Even Mr. Welch ,though his scene in the second act was a triumph, madea fundamental mistake in the third, where Foldal , whohas just been knocked down and nearly run over by thesleigh in which his daughter is being practically abducted

252


Style, derived from Ri stori , was not made for Ibsen . On

the other hand, her conversational style , admirably naturaland quite free from the Mesopotamian solemnity withwhich some of hercolleagues delivered the words of theMaster, was genuinely dramatic, and reminded me of herexcellent performance, years ago with Mr . Vernon, asLona Hessel . Mrs. Tree was clever and altogether successinl as Mrs . Wilton ; and Miss Dora Barton

’s Fridawas perfect. But then these two parts are comparativelyeasy . Miss Caldwel l tried hard to modify her well-knownrepresentation of a farcical slavey into a passable Ibseniteparlormaid, and succeeded fairly except in the little scenewhich begins the third act.

On the whole, a rather disappointing performance o f aplay which cannot be read without forming expectationswhich are perhaps unreasonable, but are certainly inevitable.

254

A DOLL’S HOUSE AGAIN

‘

A Doll’

s H ouse. By Henrik Ibsen. Globe Theatre,10May, 1897 .

H amlet . Olympic Theatre, 10 May, 1897.

Chand d’H abi ts : a musical play w ithout words. ByCatulle Mendés and Jules Bonval. H er Maj esty

’

s

Theatre, 8 May, 1897 .

T LAST I am beginning to understand anti-Ibsenism . It must be that I am growing old and weakand sentimental and foolish ; for I cannot stand

up to reality as I did once . Eight years ago, when Mr .Charrington , with

“A Doll ’s House,” struck the decis ive

blow for Ibsen—perhaps the only one that has real ly gothome in England as yet—I rejoiced in it

,and watched

the ruin and havoc it made among the idols and templeso f the ideal ists as a young war correspondent watches thebombardment o f the unhealthy quarters of a city. Butnow I understand better what it means to the unhappywretches who can conceive no other li fe as possible tothem except the Doll ’s House li fe. The master of theDoll’s House may endure and even admire h imself aslong as he is cal led King Arthur and prodigiously flattered; but to paint a Torvald Helmer for him ,

and leavehis conscience and his ever-gnawing secret diffidence towhisper “Thou art the man” when he has perhaps outl ived all chance of being any other sort of man

,must be

bitter and dreadful to him . Dr . Rank, too , with hisrickets and his scrofula, no longer an example, l ike Herod ,of the wrath of God, or a curiosity to be stared at asvi llagers stare at a sheep with tw o heads , but a matterof-fact completionof the typical picture of family life by

255


one o f the inevitable congenital inval ids, or drunkards, orlunatics whose teeth are set on edge because their fathershave eaten sour grapes : this also is a horror againstwhich an agony of protest may well be excused.

It wi ll be remarked that I no longer dwell on theawakening of the woman, which was once the central pointo f the controversy as it is the central point of the drama .

Why should I ? The play solves that problem just as itis being solved in real life . The woman ’s eyes are opened ;and instantly her doll ’s dress is thrown off and her husband left staring at her

,helpless

,bound thenceforth either

to do without her (an alternative which makes shortwork of his fancied independence ) or else treat her as ahuman being like himsel f

,ful ly recognizing that he is

not a creature o f one superior species, Man, l iving witha creature of another and inferior species, Woman , butthat Mankind is male and female, like other kinds, andthat the inequal ity o f the sexes is l iterally a cock and bul lstory, certain to end in such an unbearable humi l iationas that which our suburban King Arthurs suffer at thehands of Ibsen . The ending o f the play is not on the faceo f it particularly tragic : the alleged “note o f interrogation” is a sentimental fancy ; for it is clear that Helmeris brought to his senses

,and that Nora’s departure is no

claptrap “Farewel l forever, but a j ourney in search o f

sel f -respect and apprenticeship to li fe . Yet there is anunderlying solemnity caused by a fact that the popularinstinct has divined : to wit, that Nora

’s revolt is the endof a chapter of human history . The slam of the doorbehind her is more momentous than the cannon of Waterloo or Sedan, S back, i t wi ll no tbe to the old home when the patriarch no longerrules

,and the “brea ner” acknowledges hi s depend


temperament. But Mr . Courtenay Thorpe obliteratesbo th records . He plays Helmer with passion . It is thefirst time we have seen this done ; and the effect is overwhelming. We no longer study an obj ect lesson in lordof-creationism, appeal ing to our sociological interest only .

We see a fel low-creature blindly wrecking his happinessand losing his “love li fe,

” and are touched dramatically .

There were sl ips and blunders , it is true . Mr . CourtenayThorpe did not know his dialogue thoroughly ; and whenthe words did not come unsought he said anything thatcame into his head (stark nonsense sometimes ) soonerthan go out of his part to look for them . And he suc

cumbed to the temptation to utter the tw o or three mostfatuously conceited of Helmer’s utterances as “points

,

”

thereby destroying the naturalness that could alone makethem really credible and effective . But it did not matterthe success was beyond being undone by trifles . Ibsenhas in this case repeated his old feat of making an actor ’sreputation .

Miss Achurch ’s Nora is an old story by this time ; andI leave its celebration to the young critics who saw it onMonday for the first time . It stil l seems to me to placeher far ahead o f any living English actress of her generation in this class of work— the only class , let me add,which now presents any difficulty to actresses who bringsome personal charm to the aid of quite commonplaceattainments . Here and there we have had some bits o fnew-fashioned work on the stage—for instance , Mrs .Kendal ’s extraordinarily fine and finished performance in“The Greatest o f These,

” and Miss Wini fred Emery ’slast serious feat of acting in “The Benefit of the Doubt .”

These show that Miss Achurch ’

s monopoly is'

not one ofexecutive skill, but of the modernity of culture, the mental

258


power and quickness of vision to recognize the enormousvalue of the opportunity she has seized . In the eightyears since 1889 she has gained in strength and art ; andher performance is more powerful , more surely gripped ,and more expertly carried out than it used to be ; but ithas losses to show as well as gains . In the old daysNora ’s first scene with Krogstad had a wonderful naivetéher youthfully unsympatheti c contempt for him , her certainty that his effort to make a serious business of theforgery was mere vulgarity, her utter repudiation of thenotion that there could be any comparison between hiscase and hers , were expressed to perfection . And in thefirst hal f of the renowned final scene the ch ill “clearnessand certainty of the disillusion, the quite new tone of

intel lectual seriousness , announcing by its freshness andcoolness a complete change in her as she calls her husband to account with her eyes wide Open for the firsttime : all th is , so vitally necessary to the novel truth ofthe scene and the convincing effect of the statement thatshe no longer loves him , came with li fegiving naturalness . But these tw o scenes have now become unmistakably stale to Miss Achurch . In the Krogstad one she

plays as i f the danger of penal serv itude were the wholepoint o f it ; and she agonizes over the cool Opening of

the explanation with Helmer with all the conventionalpangs o f parting in full play from the first . This agesher Nora perceptibly . Physically she is youthful enoughHelmer

’

s“squirrel still dances blithely

,sings unmerci

ful ly, and wears reckless garments at which the modishoccupants o f the stalls stare in scandal and consternation

(and which , by the way, are impossible for a snobbish

a k manager’

s wife) . But Miss Achurch canno longercontent herse l f with a girl ’s allowance o f passion and

259


sympathy. She fills the cup and drains it ; and consequently, though Nora has all her old vitality and or

iginality, and more than her old hold of the audience, sheis less girlish and more sophisticated with the passionso f the stage than she was at the Novelty when she’ firstcaptivated us .

Mr. Charrington’

s Rank, always an admirable performance, is now better than ever. But it is also sternerand harder to bear. He has very perceptibly increasedthe horror of the part by a few touches which bring andkeep his despair and doom more vividly before the audience ; and he no longer softens his final exit by thesentimental business o f snatching Nora’s handkerchief.The effect of a performance of the “Doll ’s House”

with the three most important parts very well played ,and the economy of the mounting—which involves a disembowelled sofa—got over by intelligent stage management and a l ittle j udicious h iring and borrowing, is almost painfully strong. It is mitigated by the earnest butmistaken efforts of Mr. Charles Fulton and Miss VaneFeatherstone as Krogstad and Mrs . Linden . Mr . Fulton,invaluable at the Adelphi,

"

struggles with his part like ablacksmith mending a watch ; and the style of play wh ichmakes Miss Vane Featherstone so useful and attractivein the unrealistic drama produces , in a real i stic part, exactly the effect that might have been expected . The flattering notion, sti l l current in the profession, that anybodycan play Ibsen, i s hardly bearing the test o f experience .Happily, the elements of strength in the performancetriumph over al l drawbacks . If “The Wild Duck” nextweek is as good as “A Doll ’s House,

” the IndependentTheatre ( for which , as a small shareholder, I have acertain partiality) Will have done very wel l .

260


Lily Hanbury went through the familiar ceremony of

playing Ophelia with success , thanks to a delicate ear forthe music and a goodly person . Mr . Ben Greet was anexasperatingly placid Polonius , and Mr . Kendrick an unwontedly spirited Horatio . The only real ly noteworthyfeature of the performance was

,as aforsesaid, the Ghost.

Mr . Courtenay Thorpe ’s articulation deserted him to

wards the end ; so that the last half dozen l ines of hislong narrative and the whole of his part in the closetscene were a mere wail , in which no man could distinguish any words ; but the effect was past spoil ing by thattime ; and a very remarkable effect it was , well imaginedand well executed .

What possessed Mr . Beerbohm Tree to offer Chandd’

Habits to the sort of audience that runs after stageversions of recent imitations of the “historical” novels ofJames Grant and Harrison Ainsworth ? These plays without words only exist for people who are highly sensitiveto music

,color, and the complex art of physical expres

sion . To off er them to barbarians with no senses at all ,capable of nothing but sensational stories shouted at themin plain words , with plenty o f guns

'

and swords and si lksand velvets

,i s to court ridicule , especial ly at hal f-past

ten at night,and with the overture , which might have

done something to attune the house , played as an entr’

acte . For my part , I enjoyed“ ’Chand d’

Habits”im

mensely, and thought the insensibil ity and impatience ofthe audience perfectly hoggish . But then I had not to sit

out“Seats of the Mighty” beforehand .

262

IBSEN TRIUMPHANT

22 May, 1897.

AN IT possibly be true that The Hobby Horsewas produced so recently as 1886 ? More amazing still

, was this the comedy— comedy, markyou—which suggested to me just such hopes of Mr .Pinero ’s future as others built upon “The Profiigate

” and“The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, both o f which I con

temned as relapses into drawing-room melodrama . Going

back to it now after an interval of ten years , I find it,not a comedy , but a provincial farce in three acts , decrepit in stage convention, and only capable of appearing fresh to those who, l ike myself, can wrench themselves back, by force o f memory, to the point of viewo f a period when revivals o f “London Assurance” werestill possible . What makes the puerilities of the playmore exasperating nowadays is that it is clear, on asurvey of the original production and the present revival ,that Mr . Pinero was not driven into them by any seriousdeficiency in the executive talent at his dispo sal . In Mrs .

Kendal and Mr . Hare he had two comedians for whosecombined services an unfortunate modern dramatic author might well sacrifice hal f his percentage . Yet thepart o f Spencer Jermyn is made so easy that one maywel l ask the people who rave about Mr . Hare ’s perfomance as a masterpiece of

,

art what they suppose real lydiffi cult acting to be . And imagine Mrs . Kendal con

demmed to make London laugh by pretending to treata grown-up stepson as a l ittle boy, arranging his hair ,tel ling him not to be afraid

,that she will not punish him ,

263


and so forth ! One gasps at these things nowadays . Theymay be pardonable in the part of Shattock, who, as acomic relief— for even comedy in England must havecomic relief— is not expected to do or say anything credible or possible ; but here they were thrust into the parto f the heroine, enacted by themost accomplished actressin London . What sort of barbarians were we in thedays when w e took this sort of thing as a matter o f

course , and made merry over it ?And yet I was right about “The Hobby Horse. Ithas character, humor, observation, genuine comedy andl iterary workmanship in it as unmistakably as “The Benefit of the Doubt” has them . What is the matter withthe play is

.

the distortion and debasement of al l its qualities to suit the childishness and vulgarity of the theatreo f ten years ago . It wil l be asked scornful ly whether thetheatre of to-day is any better—whether “The Red Robe ,

”

for instance, i s hal f as good as“The Hobby Horse” ?

Before answering that, let me compare The HobbyHorse” with “The Princess and the Butterfly” ! CouldMr. Pinero venture nowadays to present to the St.James ’s audience, as comedy, the humors of Mr . Shattockand the scene between Lady Jermyn and her stepson ?You may reply that the author who has given us theduel in The Princess and the Butterfly” is capable o f

anything ; but I would have you observe that the duelis a mere makeshift in the plot of “The Princess , whereasthe follies of “The Hobby Horse are presented as flowers of comedy, and— please attend to this— are actuallyvery good of their kind . That such a kind should havebeen the best of its day—nay, that the play should havesuffered in 1886 because its comedy was rather too sub

tle for the taste of that time—is a staggering thing to

264


ment. On Monday last I sat without a murmur in astuffy theatre on a summer afternoon from three tonearly hal f-past six , spellbound by Ibsen ; but the priceI paid for it was to find mysel f stricken with mortal impatience and boredom the next time I attempted to sit

out thepre-Ibsenite drama for five minutes . Where shal lI find an epithet magnificent enough for “The WildDuck” ! To sit there getting deeper and deeper into thatEkdal home, and getting deeper and deeper into yourown l i fe al l the time

,until you forget that you are in a

theatre at al l ; to look on with horror and pity at a profound tragedy, shaking with laughter all the time at anirresistible comedy ; to go out, not from a diversion , butfrom an experience deeper than real l i fe ever brings tomost men , or often brings to any man : that is what TheWild Duck” was l ike last Monday at the Globe . It is idleto attempt to describe it ; and as to giving an analysis ofthe play, I did that seven years ago , and decline now togive mysel f an antiquated air by treating as a novelty amasterpiece that all Europe delights in . Besides , theplay is as simple as Little Red Ridinghood to any one

who comes to it fresh from l ife instead of stale from thetheatre .And now

,what have our passing-craze theorists to

say to the latest nine-days’ wonder, the tremendous effect

th is ultra-Ibsen play has just produced eight years afterthe craze set in ? As for me , what I have to say i s simply ,“I told you so .

”

We have by this time seen several productions of ADoll ’s House

,

” three o f“Rosmersholm , and tw o o f

“The Wi ld Duck .

” The first performance of“A

Doll ’s House (Mr . Charrington’

s at the Novelty ) and

o f Rosmersholm” “

(Miss Florence Farr’s at the Vaude

266


ville ) gave the actors such an overwhelming advantageas the first revealers to London of a much greater dramatist than Shakespeare , that even the vehemently antiIbsenite critics lost all power of discrimination , and flat

tered the pe rformers as frantical ly as they abused theplays . But since then the performers have had to struggle against the unreasonable expectations thus created ;and the effect o f the plays has been sternly proportionate to the intelligence and ski ll brought to bear on them .

We have learnt that an Ibsen performance in the handsof M . Lugné Poe or Mr . Charrington is a perfectly different thing from one in which there is individual talent but

practically no stage management. M . Lugné Poe established his reputation at once and easily , because he wasunder no suspicion o f depending on the genius of a particular actress : his “

Rosmersholm” with Marthe Mellot

as Rebecca had the magic atmosphere which is the signof the true manager as unmistakably as his “MasterBuilder with Suzanne Auclaire as Hilda . But Mr. Charrington , l ike Mr . Kendal and Mr . Bancroft, has a wife ;and the difference made by Miss Janet Achurch ’

s actinghas always been much more obvious than that made byher husband’s management to a publ ic which has lost alltradition of what stage management real ly is

,apart from

lavish expenditure on scenery and furniture . But forthat h is production of Voss ’s Alexandria” would haveestablished his reputation as the best stage manager of

true modern drama in London— indeed the only one, inthe sense in which I am now using the words : the sense,that is, of a producer of poetically realistic illusion . Now ,

however, we have him at last with Miss Janet Achurchout of the bill . The result is conclusive . The same in

sight which enables Mr. Charrington , in acting Relling,

267


to point t he moral of the play in half a dozen strokes,has also enabled him to order the whole representation

in such a fashion that there is not a moment of bewilderment during the development of a dramatic action subtleenough in its motives to have left even highly trained andattentive readers o f the play quite addled as to what i t

is al l about . The dialogue, which in any other handswould have been cut to ribbons, is given without thesl ightest regard to the clock ; and not even the strikingof six produces the stampede that would set in after aquarter—past five if the play were a “popular” one. Thatis a real triumph of management. It may be said thatit is a triumph of Ibsen’s genius ; but of what use isIbsen ’s genius i f the manager has not the genius to believe in it ?The acting, for a scratch company, was uncommonlygood : there was mettle in it, as there usually is wherethere is good leadership . Mr. Lawrence Irving, who

played Relling to Mr. Abingdon’

s Hjalmar Ekdal at thefirst production of the play by Mr . Grein, handed overRelling to Mr . Charrington, and played Hjalmar himself . In al l dramatic l iterature, as far as I know it, thereis no other such part for a comedian ; and I do not be

l ieve any actor capable of repeating the lines intel ligiblycould possibly fail in it. To say therefore that Mr . Irving did not fai l is to give him no praise at al l : to saythat he quite succeeded would be to proclaim him thegreatest comedian in London . He was very amusing,and played with cleverness and sometimes w ith consid

erable finesse . But though he did not overact any particular passage, he overdid the part a l ittle as a wholeby making Hjalmar grotesque . His appearance pro

claimed his weakness at once : the conceited ass was rec

268


insensitiveness, or divest her speech of artistic character,the result would only be such a caricature as a childgives of its grandmother, or, worse sti ll , something stageShakespearean, l ike her Audrey. She wisely made noattempt to denatural ize herself, but played the part sincerely and with the technical skill that marks her off , asit marks Mrs . Kendal and her school off , from our latergeneration of agreeable amateurs who do not know theA B C o f their business . Once, in the second act, she

from mere habit and professional sympathy played withher face to a speech o f Hjalmar

’

s which Gina would havetaken quite stolidly but this was her only mistake . Shegot no laughs of the wrong sort in the wrong place ; andthe speech in which the worrited Gina bursts out withthe quintessence of the whole comedy—“That’s whatcomes when crazy people go about making the claims o fthe what-d ’yer-call-it" -went home right up to the hiltinto our midriffs . Mr. Welch ’s Ekdal left nothing tobe said : it was faultless . Mr . Charrington played Rellingwith great artistic distinction : nobody else got so com

pletely free from conventional art or so convincinglybehind the part and the play as he . The only failure ofthe cast was Molvik, who was well made up, but did notget beyond a crude pantomimic representation of sickness and drunkenness which nearly ruined the play atthe most critical ly pathetic moment in the final act. Mr.

Outram was uninteresting as Werle : the part does notsuit his age and style. Miss Ffolliott Paget was a capital Mrs . Sorby .

Miss Winifred Fraser not only repeated her old tr iumph as Hedwig, but greatly added to it . The theatrecould hardly have a more del icate talent at its service ;and yet it seems to have no use for it. But Miss Fraser

270


need not be discouraged . The Briti sh public is slow ;but it i s sure . By the time she is sixty it will discover

that she is one of its best actresses ; and then it willexpect her to play Jul iet until she dies of old age .And this reminds me that I wandered away from TheHobby Horse” without a word as to the acting o f it.

Mrs. Kendal , always great in comedy, had an enchantingway of making Mrs . Jermyn’s sill iness credible and at

tractive . Miss May Harvey is far too clever and toowel l acquainted with Mrs . Kendal ’s methods to be atany great loss in replacing her ; but she i s no more specifically a comedian than Jane Hading is ; and her decisive opportunity as an actress will evidently come inmuch more intense work . In technical skill she is farabove the average of her generation—a generation , alas !o f duff ers— and I have no doubt that she will play a dist inguished part in the theatrical history of the ’ninetiesand ’twenties . The lady w ho plays Miss Moxon cannottouch Mrs . Beerbohm

’

s Tree ’s inimitable performancein that inglorious but amusing and lifelike part. On theother hand, Mr . Fred Kerr has made the solicitor his ownfor ever . His acting is irresistibly funny

,not because

it is unscrupulously bad , as funny acting often is, butbecause it is perfectly in character and as good of itskind as can be . An actor of Mr . Kerr ’s talent shouldnot be allowed to waste himself on Miss Brown’s andJedbury Juniors and such stuff . Mr . Gilbert Hare hasimproved greatly, and is now as welcome for h is ownsake as he formerly was for his father ’s . Mr . Groveso f course does what can be done with the impossible butlaughable Shattock ; and the

“pushin ’ l ittle cad” whomhe denounces, though persona muta and unnamed in thebill, is richly endowed by Nature for his humble part.

271

MAINLY ABOUT SHAKESPEARE

Othello. Lyric Theatre, 22 May, 1897.

Antony and Cleopatra. Olympic Theatre, 24 May,1897.

F ONLY I were a moral ist,l ike Shakespeare

,how I

could improve the occasion of the fal l o f the onceIndependent Theatre ! A fortnight ago that body ,

whose glory was - itfl reedom from actor-managership andits repertory o f plays which no commercial theatre wouldproduce, was hanging the wreath on the tip-top of theIndependent tower over its performance o f the “Wi ldDuck .

” This week it has offered us,as choice Independ

ent fare, the thirty-year-old“acting version” o f Shake

speare’s Antony and Cleopatra,

” with which Miss JanetAchurch made a sensation the other day in Manchester .I ask the directors of the Independent Theatre what theymean by this ? I ask it as a shareholder w ho put downhis hard-earned money for the express purpose o f providing a refuge from such exhibitions . I ask it as a memberof the body pol itic, whose only hope of dramatic nutritioni s in the strict specialization of these newly and painful lyevolved l ittle organs

,the Independent and New Century

Theatres . I ask i t as a critic who has pledged himsel ffor the integrity of the Independent Theatre as recklesslyas Falstaff did for Pistol ’s honesty . Even Pistol was ableto retort onFalstaff

,

“Didst thou not share ? Hadst thounot fifteen pence ?” But I have not had fifteen pence : Ihave only had an afternoon o f lacerating anguish, spentpartly in contemplating Miss Achurch ’

s overpoweringexperiments in rhetoric

,and partly in wishing I had never

been born .

272


confuted ; the caricaturists were disconcerted ; and theforeign actor could no longer gasp at us when we talkedof Irving as a master of his art. But suppose he hadforegone this victory ! Suppose he had said

,I can

produce studies o f modern l i fe and character like DigbyGrand . I can create weird supernatural figures l ike Vanderdecken (V anderdecken, now forgotten, was a masterpiece ) , and al l sorts of grotesques . But i f I try thisrhetorical art of making old- fashioned heroics impressiveand even beauti ful , I shall not only make a fool of mysel f as a beginner where I have hitherto shone as anadept, but— what is of deeper import to me and the world

-I shal l give up a fundamentally serious social functionfor a fundamental ly nonsensical theatrical accompl ishment.” What would have been the result of such a re

nunciation? We should have escaped Lyceum Shakespeare ; and we should have had the ablest manager o f theday driven by l i fe-or-death necessity to extract from contemporary l iterature the proper food for the modern sideo f his talent, and thus to create a new drama instead o f

galvanizing an old one and cutting himsel f off from al lcontact with the dramatic vital ity of his time . And whatan excel lent thing that would have been both for us andfor him !Now what Sir Henry Irving has done , for good orevil , Miss Janet Achurch can do too . I f she is tired o f

being “an Ibsenite actress” and wants to be a modernRistori , it is clear that the publ ic wi ll submit to her apprenticeship as humbly as they submitted to Sir HenryIrv ing

’ s . Mr. Grossmith may caricature her at his re

citals ; flippant critics may pass j ests through the stal lsor pittites with an ungovernable sense of the ludicrousburst into guffaws ; the orchestra may wri the l ike a heap

274


of trodden worms at each upl i fting of her favorite tragicwai l ; but now , as at the Lyceum o f old, the publ ic as awhole is clearly at her mercy ; for in art the strength of

a chain is its strongest link ; and once the power to strikea masterstroke is clearly felt, the publ ic wil l wait for itpatiently through al l extremities o f experimenta l blundering. But the result will repeat itsel f as surely as theprocess . Let -Miss Achurch once learn to make therhetorical drama plausible, and thenceforth she wi l l neverdo anything else . Her interest in li fe and character willbe supplanted by an interest in plastique and execution ;and she wi l l come to regard

!

emotion simply as the bestof lubricants and stimulants , caring nothing for its specificcharacter so long as it is o f a suffi ciently obvious andfacile sort to ensure a copious flow without the fatigueof thought . She will take to the one-part plays of Shakespeare , Schiller , Giacometti , and Sardou , and be regardedas a classic person by the Corpo ration of Stratford-onAvon . In short, she will become an Engl ish Sarah Bernhardt. The process is already far advanced . OnMondaylast she was sweeping about, clothed with red Rossettianhair and beauty to match ; revel l ing in the power of hervoice and the steam pressure of her energy ; curv ing herwrists elegantly above Antony ’s head as if she were goingto extract a globe of gold fish and two rabbits frombehind his ear ; and generally celebrating her choice between the rare and costly art of being beauti fully naturalin li felike human acting, l ike Duse , and the comparativelycommon and cheap one of being theatrically beauti ful inheroic stage exhibition . Alas for our lost leaders ! Shakespeare and success capture them al l .

“Othel lo” at the Lyric was a much less trying ex

perience. Antony and Cleopatra” is an attempt at a

275


serious drama. To say that there is plenty of bogus characterization in it—Enobarbus , for instance—is merely tosay that it is by Shakespeare . But the contrast betweenCaesar and Antony is true human drama ; and Caesar himself is deeper than the usual Shakespearean stage king.

“Othello,

”on the other hand, is pure melodrama . There

is not a touch o f character in it that goes below the skin ;and the fitful attempt s to make Iago something betterthan a melodramatic villain only make a hopeless messof him and his motives . To any one capable o f readingthe play with an open mind as to its merits, it is obviousthat Shakespeare plunged through it so impetuously thathe had it finished before he had made up his mind as tothe character and motives of a single person in it. Probably it was not until he stumbled into the sentimental fitin wh ich he introduced the willow song that he saw hisway through without making Desdemona enough o f the“supersubtle Venetian” of Iago’s description to strengthenthe case for Othel lo’s j ealousy . That j ealousy, by theway, is purely melodramatic j ealousy. The real articleis to be found later on in “A Winter’s Tale, whereLeontes is an unmistakable study o f a j ealous man from

(s l i fe . But when the worst has been said of “Othello thatcan be provoked by its superficiality and staginess, i t remains magnificent by the volume o f its passion and thesplendor of its word-music, which sweep the scenes up toa plane onwhich sense is drowned in sound . The wordsdo not convey ideas : they are streaming ensigns andtossing branches to make the tempest of passion visible .In this passage, for instance :

Like to . the Pontic sea,

Whose icy current and compulsive course

Ne’

er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on

276


addio,sante memorie aff ects us when sung by Tamagno.

e . Wilson Barrett is an umnusical speaker except whenhe is talking Manx . He chops and drives his phraseslike a smart carpenter with a mal let and chisel , hittingall the prepositions and conj unctions an extra hard rap ;and he has a positive genius for misquotation. For

example

Of one othat loved not w isely but w ell

Drop tears down faster thant he Arabian trees,

both of which appear to me to bear away the palm fromMiss Achurch ’

s

By the scandering of this pelleted storm.

It is a pity that he is not built to fit Othello ; for heproduces the play, as usual, very well . At the Lyceumevery one is bored to madness the moment Sir HenryIrving and Miss Terry leave the stage : at the Lyric, asaforetime at the Princess ’s , the play goes briskly frombeginning to end ; and there are always three or foursuccesses in smaller parts sparkling round Mr. Barrett’sbig part . Thus Mr . Wigne Percyval, the first Cassio Iever saw get over the difficulty of appearing a responsibleofficer and a possible successor for Othel lo with nothingbut a drunken scene to do it in

,divides the honors of the

second act with Iago ; and Mr . Ambrose Manning is interesting and amusing all through as Roderigo . Mr.Frankl in McLeay, as Iago , makes him the hero o f theperformance . But the character defies al l consistency.

Shakespeare , as usual , starts with a rough general notionof a certain type of individual , and then throws it over

278


at the first temptation . Iago begins as a coarse blackguard

,whose jovial bluntness passes as “honesty, and

who is professionally a routine subaltern incapable of

understanding why a mathematician gets promoted over

h is head . But the moment a stage effect can be made, or

a fine “speech brought off by making him refined, subtleand dignified, he i s set talking like Hamlet, and becomesa godsend to students of the “problems” presented by ourdivine William ’s sham characters . Mr . McLeay does al lthat an actor can do with him . He follows Shakespearefaithfully on the rails and off them . He plays the jovialblackguard to Cassio and Roderigo and the phi losopherand mentor to Othello j ust as

'

the lines lead him , withperfect intelligibility and with so much point, distinctionand fascination that the audience loads him with com

pliments, and the critics all make up their minds to declarethat he shows the finest insight into the many- sided andcomplex character o f the prince o f villains . As to MissMaud Jeffries, I came to the conclusion when she sat upin bed and said,

“Why I should fear, I know not” with

pretty petulance, that she did not realize the situation abit ; but her voice was so pathetically charming andmusical , and she so beautiful a woman

,that I hasten to

confess that I never saw a Desdemona I liked better . MissFrances Ivor, always at her best in Shakespeare, shouldnot on that account try to deliver the speech about “lashing the rascal naked through the world” in the tradit ional Mrs . Crummles manner. Emilia ’s really interesting speeches , which contain some o f Shakespeare ’s curious anticipations of modern ideas

,were o f course cut ;

but Miss Ivor, in what was left, proved her aptitude forShakespearean work , o f which I self-denyingly wish herall possible abundance.

‘

279


Mr. Barrett’s best scene is that in wh ich he reads thedespatch brought by Lodovico. His worst— leaving out

of account those torrential outbreaks o f savagery for whichhe is too civilized— is the second act. The storm , thedread of shipwreck, the darkness , the fierce riot, the“dreadful bell that frights t he i sle from its propriety

,

”

are not only not suggested, but contradicted , by thescenery and management . We are shown a delightfulMediterranean evening ; the bel l is as pretty as an operaticangelus ; Othello comes in , like a temperance lecturer ;Desdemona does not appear ; and the exclamation,

Look, if my gentle love be not raised up

I’

ll make thee an example,”

becomes a ludicrously schoolmasterly “I ’ll make thee anexample

,

” twice repeated . Here Mr . Barrett makes theMoor priggish instead of simple, as Shakespeare meanthim to be in the moments when he meant anything beyondmaking effective stage points . Another mistake in man

agement i s the business o f the portrait in the third act,which is of little value to Othello , and interrupts Iago

’

sspeeches in a flagrantly obvious manner .


working classes through novels written by men w ho hadgathered their notions of the subj ect either

”

from a squal idfami liarity with general servants in Pentonvi l le kitchens ,or from no famil iarity at al l with the agricultural laborerand the retinues of the country house and West Endmansion . To-day the “

infidels” are bishops and church

wardens, without change o f view on their part . Thereis no population question ; and the young l ions and l ionesses of Chronicle and Star, Keynote and Pseudonym ,

without suspicion of debauchery, seem to know as muchof erotic psychology as the most l iberally educated Periclean Athenians . The real working classes loom hugelyin middle-class consciousness , and have pressed into theirservice the whole public energy o f the time ; so that noweven a Conservative Government has nothing for theclasses but “doles,

” extracted with diffi culty from its preoccupation with instalments of Utopian Social ism . Theextreme reluctance Of Englishmen to mention thesechanges is the measure of their dread of a reaction to theolder order which they sti ll instinctively connect withstrict applications o f religion and respectabil ity.

Since “Caste” has managed to survive al l this, it'

need

not be altogether despised by the young champions whoare staring contemptuously at it

,and asking what heed

they can be expected to give to the Opinions of criticswho think such stuff worth five minutes ’ serious consideration . For my part, though I enjoy it more than Ienj oyed “The Notorious Mrs . Ebbsm ith ,

” I do not defendit . I see now clearly enough that the eagerness withwhich it was swallowed long ago was the eagerness withwhich an ocean castaway, sucking his bootlaces in anagony of thirst in a ‘sublime desert of salt water , wouldpounce ona spoonful of flat salutaris and think it nectar .

282

Dramat ic Opinions.

and Essays

After years of sham heroics and superhuman balderdash,“Caste” del ighted everyone by its freshness, its nature,its humanity . You will shriek and snort, O scornfulyoung men, at this monstrous assertion .

“Nature ! Freshness you will exclaim .

“In Heaven ’s name (i f you are

not too modern to have heard Of Heaven ) where is therea touch o f nature in ‘Caste’ I reply

,

“In the windows,in the doors , in the wal ls , in the carpet, in the ceiling, inthe kettle, in the fireplace, in the ham , in the tea , in thebread and butter, in the bassinet, in the hats and sti cksand clothes , in the famil iar phrases , the quiet, unpumped,everyday utterance : in short , the commonplaces that arenow spurned because they are commonplaces, and werethen inexpressibly welcome because they were the mostunexpected of novelties .”

And yet I dare not submit even this excuse to a detailed examination . Charles Mathews was in the fieldlong before Robertson and Mr . Bancroft with the art ofbehaving like an ordinary gentleman in what looked likea real drawing-room . The characters are very old stagers ,very thinly “humanized .

” Captain Hawtrey may looknatural now in the hands of Mr. Fred Kerr ; but he beganby being a very near relation of the old stage “swel l,

”

who pulled his moustache, held a single eyeglass betweenhis brow and cheekbone, said

“H aw , haw

” and “By Jove,”

and appeared in every harlequinade in a pair of whitetrousers wh ich were blacked by the clown instead of hisboots . Mr. Henry Arthur Jones , defending his idealizedearly impressions as Berlioz defended the forgottenDalayrac, pleads for Eccles as

“a great and vital tragicomic figure .” But the fond plea cannot be allowed .

Eccles is caricatured in the vein and by the methods whichDickens had made obvious ; and the implied moral view

283

Dramat ic Opinions ; and Essays

ot is case is the common Pharisaic one of h is day.

'

Eccles and Gerridge together epitomize mid-century V ictor1an shabby-genteel ignorance of the working classes.Pol ly is comic rel ief pure and simple ; George and Estherhave nothing but a milkcan to differentiate them from theheroes and heroines o f a thousand sentimental dramas ;and though Robertson happens to be quite right—contrary to the prevailing Opinion among critics whose conceptionof the aristocracy is a theoretic one—inrepresenting

'the“Marquiz zy

” as insisting openly and jealously onher rank, and, in fact, having an impenitent and resoluteflunkeyism as her class characteristic

,yet it is quite ev

ident that she is not an original study from l i fe, butsimply a ladyfication of the conventional haughty motherwhom we lately saw revived in al l her original vulgarityand

l

absurdity at the Adelphi in Maddison Morton’s “All

that Glitters is not Go ld , and w ho was general ly associated on the stage

’

w ith the swel l from whom CaptainHawtrey i s evolved . Only, let it not be forgotten thatin both there really is a humanization

,as humanization

was understood in the .

’s ixties : that is, a discovery o f

saving sympathetic qualities in personages thithertodeemed beyond redemption . Even theology had to behumanized then hy the rej ection of the old doctrine of

eternal punishment. H awtrey is a good fellow, whichthe earl ier “swel l” never was ; the Marquise is dignifiedand aff ectionate at heart

,and is neither made ridiculous

by a grotesque .headdress nor embraced by the drunken

Eccles ; and neither of them is attended by a supercil iousfootman in plush whose head is finally punched powderless by Sam Gerridge . And if from these hints you cannot gather the real nature and limits of the tiny theatricalrevolution of which Robertson was the hero, I must leave

'

284


doubtless childish enough in their objection to rowdydaughters-in-law to wish occasionally that they would die ;but they don’t shoot them on principle ; and the fact thatAugier was driven to such a foolish solution is in itsel fa damning criticism of his play. But it i s amusing andnot uninteresting to watch Olympe nowadays, and notehow completelyher

“nostalgie de la boue” i s justified asagainst the dull and sensual respectabi lity of the fatherin-law . In fact, the play now so plainly shows that it i sbetter for a woman to be a liar and a rapscal l ion than amere lady, that I should be incl ined to denounce it asdangerously immoral if there were no further and betteralternatives open to her.Miss Eleanor Lane, a very capable American actress,played Olympe efficiently ; and Mrs . Rose Vernon-Pagetmade a distinct hit by giving a character sketch of thedetrimental mother on which Granny Stephens at herbest could not have improved . Mr. Bell played the dashing man-about-town as such parts used to be played inthe days of H . J . Byron ; and Mrs . Theodore Wrightwas particularly good as the wife of the Vindicator o f

Family Honor, who was better treated by Mr. Gurney

than he deserved.

286

LORENZACCIO

Lorenzaccio: a drama in five acts, by Alfred dcMusset. Adapted for the stage by M. Armandd’

Artois. Adelphi Theatre, 17 June, 1897.

HAT was the Romantic movement ? Iknow

,though I was under its Spe l l in my

youth . Al l I can say i s that it was a freako f the human imagination

,which created an imaginary

past,an imaginary heroism , an imaginary poetry out of

what appears to those of us who are no longer in the veinfor it as the show in a theatrical costumier ’s shop w indowdEverybody tells you that i t began with somebody andended with somebody else ; but al l its begi nners wereanticipated ; and it i s going on stil l . Byron’s Laras andCorsairs look l ike the beginning o f it to an elderly readerunti l he recol lects “The Castle of Otranto yet “TheCastle o f Otranto” i s not so romantic as Otway

’

s“Venice

Preserved,” which, again, is no more romantic than the

tales o f the knights errant beloved of Don Qu ixote .Romance is always , I think, a product Of ennui, an at-

‘

I

tempt to escape from a condition in which real li fe appears empty, prosaic and boresome— therefore essential lya gentlemanly product. The man w ho has grappled withreal li fe, flesh to flesh and spirit to spiri t, has l i ttle patienceJwith fools ’ paradises . When Carlyle said to the emigrants ,“Here and now is your America,

” he spoke as a realistto romantici sts ; and Ibsen -was of the same mind whenhe finally decided that there is more tragedy in the nextsuburban villa than in a whole imaginary Italy of un

authentic Borgias. Indeed, in our present phase, romancehas become the l iterary trade of imaginative weaklings

287


who have neither the e nergy to gain experience of lifenor the genius to divine it : wherefore I would have th eState establ ish a public Departmen t o f Literature, whichshould affix to every romance

'

a brief dossier of the author . For example —“The writer of this story has noascertainable qualifications for dealing with the greatpersonages and events of history . His mind is storedwith fictiOn, and his imagination inflamed with alcohol .His books, ful l of splendid sins, in 'no respect reflect hisl i fe, as he is too timid not to be conventionally respectable ,and has never fought a man or tempted a woman . Hecannot box , fence, of: ride, and is afraid to master thebicycle . He appears to be kept al ive mainly by the careo f his wi fe, a plain

'

wOman, much worn by looking afterhim and the chi ldren . He is unconscious that he has anyduties as a citizen ; and the Secretary o f State for Literature has failed to extract from him any intell igibleanswer to a question as to the difference between anUrban Sanitary Authority and the Holy Roman Empire .

The public are therefore warned to attach no practicalimportance to the feats o f swordsmanship, the breakneckrides , the intrigues

.

with Semiramis,Cleopatra and Cather

ine of Russia, and the cabinet councils o f Julius Caesar,Charlemagne,

'

R ichelieu and Napoleon, as ,described in

his works ; and he is hereby declared liable to quadrupleassessment for School Board rates in consideration o f hisbeing the chief beneficiary

,so far

,by the efforts made in

the name of popular education to make reading and w riting coextensive with popular ignorance . ’

r”For al l that, the land of dreams 15 a wonderful place ,

and the great Romancers who found the key of its gateswereno Alnaschars. These artists, inspired neither byfaith and beat

itude, nor by strife and realization, were

288


reality and earnestness . But if I were to be stoned for i tthis afternoon by fervent Wagnerites and Ibsenites

,I

must declare that the mirages were once dear and beauti ful , and that the whole Wagnerian criticism of them,

however salutary ( I have been myself one of its mostruthless practitioners ) , has al l along been a pious dialectical fraud, because it applies the tests of realism andrevelation to the arts of i l lusion and transfiguration.

From the point of view of the Building Act the palacesbuilt by Mr. Brock, the pyrotechnist, may be most pestilent frauds ; but that only shows that Mr . Brock

’s pointo f view is not that of the Bui lding Act, though it mightbe very necessary to deliberately force that criticism onhis works if real architecture showed signs of beingseduced by the charms of his colored fires . It was j ustsuch an emergency that compelled Wagner to resort tothe pious dialectical fraud against his old romanticistloves . Their enchantments were such that their phantasms

,which genius alone could sublimate from real l ife,

became the models after which the j ourneyman artistworked and was taught to work, blinding him to natureand reality, from wh ich alone his talent could gain nourishment and originality, and setting him to waste his l i fein outlining the shadows of shadows , with the result thatRomanticism became, at second hand, the bl ight and dryrot of Art. Then all the earnest spirits , from Ruskin andthe pre-Raphael ites to Wagner and Ibsen, rose up andmade war on it. Salvator Rosa, the romantic painter,went down before the preaching o f Ruskin as Delacroixhas gone down before the practice of John Maris , V onUhde

,and the “impressionists” and real ists whose work

led up to them . Meyerbeer was brutally squelched , and

Berlioz put out of countenance, by the preaching and”290


practice of Wagner. And after Ibsen—nay, even afterthe cup-and-saucer realists—w e no longer care for Schiller ; Victor Hugo, onhis spurious , v iolently romantic side,only incommodes us ; and the Spiri t of such a waywardmasterpiece of Romantici sm as Al fred de Musset’s“Lorenzaccio

” would miss fire with us altogether i f w ecould bring ourse lves to wade through the

.morass o f

pseudo-mediaval Florentine chatter with which it begins .De Musset, though a drunkard, with hi s mind alwaysderelict in the sea of his imagination, yet had the sacredfire. Lorenzaccio

”is a reckless play, broken up into

scores of scenes in the Shakespearean manner, but without Shakespeare’s workmanlike eye to stage business andto cumulative dramatic effect ; for hal f these scenes leadnowhere ; and the most gaily trivial of them—that inwhich the two children fight—is placed 1n the fifth act,after the catastrophe, which takes place in the fourth .

According to all the rules , the painter Tebaldeo musthave been introduced to stab somebody later on, insteado f merely to make Lorenzaccio feel l ike a cur ; FilippoStrozzi is a V irginius-Lear wasted ; the Marquise wasplainly intended for someth ing very fine in the seventeenth act , i f the play ever got so far ; and Lorenzaccio

’

s

swoon at the s ight of a sword in the first act remains amystery to the end of the play . False starts , dropped

motives, no-thoroughfares, bewilder the expert in “con

s truction” all through ; but none the less the enchantersustains his illusion : you are always in the RenaissantItal ianci ty of the Romanticist imagination, a murderousbut fascinating place ; and the characters, spectral as theyare, are yet as distinct and individual as Shakespeare

’s ,some of them—Salviati , for instance—coming out with

the rudest force in a mere mouthful of l ines . Only, the

Dramat ic ‘Opinions ‘and Essays

force never becomes realism: the romantic atmosphereveils and transfigures everything . LOrenzaccio himself,though his speeches bite with the suddenest vivacity ,never emerges from the mystic twil ight of which he seemstobe only a fantastic cloud, and no one questions the consistency of the feet stealing through nameless infamy andthe head raised to the stars . In the Romantic schoolhorror was naturally akin to sublimity .

In the Romantic school , too, there was noth ing1ncon

gruous inthe man ’s part being played by a woman, sincethe whole business

‘

was so subtly pervaded by sex instinctsthat a woman never came amiss to a romanticist. Tohim she was not a human being Or a fellow creature, butsimply the incarnated divinity o f sex . And I regret toadd that women rather liked being worshipped on falsepretences at first. In America they stil l do. So they playmen’s parts fitly enough 1nthe Romantic school ; and thecontralto in trunk hose 1s almost a natural organic partof romantic opera. Consequently, the announcement thatSarah Bernhardt was to 'play LOrenzac

’

cio was by nomeans incongruous and scandalous , as , for instance, a

prOposal on her part to play the Master Builder wouldhave been . Twenty years ago, under the direction of astage manager w ho really understood the work, she

would probably havegiven us a memorable sensation withit. As it i s—well , as it is, perhaps you had better go andj udge for yourself. A ‘stal l will only cost you a guinea .

Perhaps I ama prejudiced critic o f French acting, asit seems to me to be simply Engl ish acting fifty years outof date, always excepting the geniuses l ike Coquel in andRej ane, and the bold pioneers l ike Lugné Poe and his

company. The average Parisian actor was quaint andinteresting to me at first , and h is peculiar mechanical

392


cracker, I concluded that w e were to have no Lorenzaccio ,and that poor De Musset’s play was only a new pretextfor the old exhibition . But that conclusion

, though soundin the main, proved a little too sweeping. Certainly theLorenzaccio of De Musset, the filthy wretch who is ademon and an angel, with hi s fierce, serpent-tongued repartees, h is subtle blasphemies , his cynical levity playingover a passion of horror at the wickedness and cowardiceof the world that tolerates him, is a conception whichMadame Bernhardt has failed to gather from the textif she has troubled herself to gather any original imaginative conception from it, which I cannot help doubting. But the scene o f the stealing of the coat of mail,with its incorporated

,fragment of the earlier scene with

the painter, was excellently played ; and the murder scenewas not a bad piece o f acting o f a heavy conventionalkind, such as a good Shakespearean actor of the old

school would turn on be fore killing Duncan or Desdemona, or in declaiming

“Oh that th is too too solid flesh

would melt ! I seriously suggest to Madame Bernhardtthat she might do worse than attempt a round of Shakespeareanheroes . Only, I beg her not to get M . Armandd’

Artois to arrange Shakespeare’s plays for the stage ashe has so kindly arranged “

Lorenzaccio .

The company supporting Madame Bernhardt is, as faras I can j udge

,up to standard requirements . They de

livered De Musset’s phrases in the usual French manner,so that the words “Alexandre de Médicis” rang throughmy head al l night l ike “extra special” or

“Tuppence abarskit .

”Only one actor succeeded in pronouncing

Strozzi properly ; and even he drew the line at Venturi ,which became frankly French . And yet when Mr . Terriss, with British straightforwardness, makes the first

294


syllable in Valelos rhyme to ball, and pronounces Contesse” l ike contest with the final t omitted , the Britishplaygoer whispers that you would never hear a Frenchactor doing such a thing. The truth is that i f Mr . Terriss were to speak as we have Often heard M . MounetSul ly speak

,he would be removed to an asylum unti l he

showed signs o f returnlng humanity . As a rule, when”

?

an Englishman can act, he knows better than to wastethat invaluable talent on the stage ; so that in Englandan actor is mostly a man who cannot act wel l enough tobe allowed to perform anywhere except in a theatre . InFrance, an actor is a man w ho has no t common senseenough to behave naturally . And that, I imagine , is justwhat the English actor was half a century ago.

J

GHOSTS AT TH E JUBILEE

Ghosts . By H enrik Ibsen. The Independent Theatre ,Queen

’

s Gate H all, South Kensington, 24, 25, and

26 June, 1897.

HE Jubilee and Ibsen’s Ghosts” ! On the one

hand the Queen and the Archbishop o f Canterbury : On the other, Mrs . Alving and Pastor

Manders . Stupendous contrast ! how far reflected in theprivate consciousness o f those two august persons therei s no means of ascertaining. For though of al l the millions for the nourishment o f whose loyalty the Queen mustsubmit to be carried through the streets from time totime , not a man but is firm ly persuaded that her opinionsand convictions are exact facsimiles of his own, none theless she, having seen much of men and affairs, may quite

295


possibly be a wise woman and worthy successor'

ofgs

Canute, and no mere butt for impertinent and senselessJubilee odes such as their perpetrators dare not , for fearof intolerable domestic scorn and ridicule, address to their

t ownwives or mothers . I am mysel f cut off by my profession from Jubilees ; for loyalty in a critic is corruption .

But i f I am to avoid idolizing kings and queens in theordinary human way, I must carefully real ize them asfellow-creatures . And so , whilst the nation was burningwar incense in a thousand cannons before the throne atSpithead, I

“

was wondering, on my way home from“Ghosts ,

”how far li fe had brought to the Queen the les

sons it brought to Mrs . A lving. ForMrs . Alving is notanybody in particular : she i s a typical figure of the ex

perienced, intelligent woman who, in passing from thefirst to the last quarter of the hour Of history cal led thenineteenth century, has discovered how appal lingly op

portunities were wasted, morals perverted, and instinctscorrupted, not only— sometimes not at al l—by the vicesshe was taught to abhor in her, youth, but by the virtuesit was her pride and uprightness to maintain .

Suppose, then, the Queen were to turn upon us in themidst o f our j ubilation, and say,

“My Lords and Gentlemen : You have been good enough to describe at greatlength the changes made during the last sixty years inscience, art, politics , dress , sport, locomotion, newspapers ,and everything else that men chatter about . But haveyou not a word to say about the change that comes homemost closely to me ? I mean the change in the number,the character

,and the intensity of the l ies a woman must

either believe or pretend to believe before she can graduate in polite society as a wel l-brought-up lady .

” If HerMajesty could be persuaded to give a list of these lies,

296


as the noisiest of her subj ects,who see in their ideal

Queen the polar opposite of Mrs . A lving, and who areso far right that the spirit of “Ghosts” i s unquestionablythe polar opposite o f the spirit of the Jubilee. The

Jubilee represents the nineteenth century proud of itsel f.Ghosts” represents it loathing itsel f. And how it canloathe itsel f when it gets tired of its money ! Think o f

Schopenhauer and Shelley, Lassal le and Karl Marx,Ruskin and Carlyle , Morris and Wagner and Ibsen . H ow

fiercely they rent the bosom that bore them ! H ow theydetested all the orthodoxies, and respectabi l ities, andideals we have j ust been bejubilat ing ! Of al l their attacks, none is rasher or fiercer than

“Ghosts .” And yet,l ike them all, it i s perfectly unanswerable . Many generations have laughed at comedies l ike andrepeated that hel l i s paved with good intentions ; butnever before have we had the wel l-brought-up , highminded nineteenth-century lady and her excel lent clergyman as the m l schief-makers . With them the theme ,though stil l in its essence comic, requires a god to laughat it. To mortals who may die of such blundering it istragic and ghastly.

The performance of G hosts by the IndependentTheatre Society left the tw o previous productions bythe same society far behind. As in the case of

“TheWild Duck

,

” al l Obscurity vanished ; and Ibsen’s clear

ness, his grip o f his theme, and the rapidity, directnessand intensity of the action of the piece produced theeffect they can always be depended on to produce incapable hands

,such as Mr . Charrington

’

s, so far aloneamong those of Ibsenite stage-managers , have provedto be. Mrs . Theodore Wright’s Mrs . A lving, original lyan achievement quite beyond the culture of any other

298


actress of her generation,is sti l l hardly less peculiar to

her . Mrs . Wright’s technique i s not in the least that ofthe Ibsen school . Never for a moment would you suspecther o f having seen Miss Janet Achurch or any one re

motely resembling her. She is unmistakably a contemporary of Miss Ellen Terry . When I first saw her actshe was playing Beatr ice in Much Ado About Nothing,

”

with a charm and intuition that I have not seen surpassed,and should not have seen equal led i f I had never seenMiss Terry wasting her gi fts on Shakespeare . As ithappened, Mrs. Theodore Wright, perhaps because she

was so fond of acting that the stage , where there is lessopportunity for it than anywhere else in England, boredher intolerably, found her way behind the scenes of therevolutionary drama of the century at a time when thehappy ending now in progress had not been reached , andplayed Shakespeare and recited Shelley, Hood andGeorge Eliot before Karl Marx

,Morris

, Bradlaugh and

other volcanic makers of the difi erence between 1837

and 1897, as proudly as Tairua played to his pit of kings .

Her authors , it wi l l be seen, were not so advanced as heraudiences ; but that could not be helped , as the progressive movement in England had not produced a dramatist ;and nobody then dreamt of Norway, or knew that Ibsenhad begun the drama Of struggle and emancipation , andhad declared that the real ly effective progressive forces ofthe moment were the revolt of the working classes againsteconomic, and of the women against ideal istic , slavery.

Such a drama, o f course , immediately found out thatweak spot in the theatrical profession which Duse puther finger on the other day in Paris— the so- cal led stupidity of the actors and actresses . Stupidity, however,i s hardly the word . Actors and actresses are clever

299


enough on the side '

on which their professioncultivatesthem . What is the matter with them is the characteristicnarrowness and ignorance of their newly conquered conventional respectability . They are now neither above thecommonplaces of middle-class idealism, l ike the aristoerat and poet , nor below them , l ike the vagabond andBohemian . The theatre has become very much what theDissenting chapel used to be : there is not a manager inLondon who, in respect of liberality and enl ightenmento f opinion, familiarity and sympathy with current socialquestions

,can be compared with the leaders o f Noncon

formity . Take Sir Henry Irving and Dr . Clifford forexample . The Dissenter” i s a

_

couple o f centuries aheado f the actor : indeed, the comparisonseems absurd, so grotesquely is it to the disadvantage of the institution whichstill imagines itsel f the more cultured and less prej udicedof the two . And, but for Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, theauthors would cut as poor a figure from this point ofview as the actors . Duse advises actors to read ; but of

what use is that ? They do read—more than is good forthem . They read the drama, and are eager students of

criticism,though they would die rather than confess as

much to a critic . (Whenever'

an actor tells me, as heinvariably does , that he has not seen any notices of hisperformance, I always know that he has the

“SaturdayReview” in his pocket ; but I respect the delicacy Of anevasion which is .as instinctive and involuntary as blushing. ) When the drama loses its hold on l ife, and criti

cismi s dragged down with it, the actor’s main point o f

intellectual contact with the world is cut off ; for hereads nothing else with serious attention . He then hasto spin his . culture out o f his own imagination or thato f the dramatist and criti cs , a facile but delusive proc

’

ess


ically, and intelligently as Miss Wini fred Emery or MissKate Rorke will create the heroine Of the next adaptationfrom the French drama of 1840 by Mr . Grundy ; and bythat one step she walked over the heads of the whole profession, I cannot say into the first intellectual rank asan English actress , because no such rank then existed,but into a niche in the history of the English stage theprominence o f which would, if they could

‘

foresee it, veryconsiderably astonish those who think that making history is as easy as making knights . (The point of thisvenomous allusion will not be missed . It is nothing tobe a knight-actor now that there are two of them . Whenwill Sir Henry Irv ing bid for at least a tiny memorial inscription in the neighborhood of Mrs. Theodore Wright’sniche ? )The remarkable success of Mr. Courtenay Thorpe inIbsen parts in London lately, and the rumors as to thesensation created by his Oswald Alving in America , gavea

‘

good deal of interest to his first appearance here inthat part . He has certainly succeeded in it to his heart’scontent, though th i s time his very large share of theoriginal sin of picturesqueness and romanticism brokeout so strongly that he borrowed little from realism except its pathologic horrors . Since Miss Robins’s memorable exploit in “Alan ’s Wife” w e have had nothing so

harrowing on the stage ; and it should be noted, forguidance in future experiments in audience torture , thatin both instances the limit o f the victims ’ susceptibilitywas reached before the end of the second act, at whichexhaustion produced callousness . Mrs. Alving, who

spared us by making the best of her sorrows instead of

the worst of them , preserved our sympathy up to thelast ; but Oswald, who showed no mercy, might have

302


been burnt alive in the orphanage without a throb of

compassion . Mr . Leonard Outram improved prodig

iously on his old impersonation of Pastor Manders . In1891 he was sti ll comparatively fresh from the appren

ticeship as a“ heroic rhetori cal actor which served him

so wel l when he played Valence to Miss Alma Murray’sColombe for the

'

B rowning Society ; and his stiff andcautious performance probably meant noth ing but eleverly concealed bewilderment . This time Mr. Outramreally achieved the character, though he would probablyplease a popular audience better by making more of thatbabyish side of him which excites the indulgent affectiono f Mrs . A lving, and less of the moral cowardice andfutility po sing as virtue and optimi sm which brings downon him the contemptuous judgment of Ibsen himself .Miss Kingsley’s attractions, made as familiar to us bythe pencil o f Mr . Rothenstein as Miss Dorothy Dene ’sby that of Leighton, were excellently fitted to Regina ;and Mr . Norreys Connell, after a somewhat unpromisingbeginning, played Engstrand with much zest and humor.

303

MR. GRUNDY’

S IMPROVEMENTS ONDUMAS ,

The S ilver Key : a‘

comedy in four acts, adaptedfrom A lexandre Dumas

’ “Mlle de Belleisle”by

sydney Grundy. H er Majesty’s Theatre, 10 July,1897.

MUST say I take the new Dumas adaptation in any. thing but .good part.

~Why on earth cannot Mr .Grundy let well alone ? Dumas [Jere was what Gou

nod called Mozart, a summit in art . Nobody ever could,or did, or will improve onMozart

’s operas ; and nobodyever could, or. did

, or'

will improve onDumas ’ romancesand plays . After Dumas you may have Dumas-andwater, or you

‘

may have, in Balzac, a quite new andd if

fe'

rent beginning ; but you get nothing above Dumas onhis ownmountain : he is the summit, and if you attemptto pass him you c ome down on the other side insteado f getting. higher . 'Mr.

i Grundy’s version Of the “Mariage sous Louis Quinze did not suggest that he wasin the absurd position of being the only expert in theworld who did not know this ;

'

but the chorus of acclamation with which we greeted that modest and workmanl ike achievement seems to have dazzled him ; for in hisversion o f

“Madamoiselle de Belleisle he treats us toseveral improvements of his own, some o f them pruder

ies which spare us nothing of the original except its wit ;others

,l ike the dreams and the questioning o f the ser

vant in her mistress ’s presence by the jealous lover, wanton adulterations ; and all , as it seems to me , blunders instagecraft. They remind me of the “additional aecom

paniments of our musicians used to condescend to sup

304


with the work of one of the best storytellers , narrativeor dramatic, that ever lived, I feel driven to express myself shrewishly. As to the ending of the play with acrudely dragged in title-tag (

“The Silver King” or something like it ) , it is—well, I do not wish to be impol ite ;so I will simply ask Mr. Grundy whether he really thinkshighly of i t himsel f.The acting at Her Majesty’s is not precisely what onecalls exquisite ; and for perfect interpretation of Dumasacting should be nothing less . Such delicacy of execu

tion as there is on our stage never comes within a mileof virtuosity . As virtuosity in manners was the characteristic mode of eighteenth-century smart society, itfollows that w e get nothing of the eighteenth centuryat Her Maj esty’s , except that from time to time the persons of the drama alarm us by suddenly developing symptoms o f strychnine po isoning, which are presently seento be intended for elabo rate bows and curtseys . Thistroubles the audience very little. The manners of Mr .Tree and Mr . Waller

”

are better than eighteenth-centurymanners ; and I , for one, am usually glad to exchange oldlamps for new ones in this particular. But it takes novery subtle critic to see that the exchange makes theplay partly incredible . Mr . Waller suff ers more in thisrespect than Mr. Tree, because his late-nineteenth-centurypersonal ity is hopelessly incompatible with the eighteenthcentury cut-and-dried ideals of womanhood and chivalryof the hero he represents . Mr . Tree is in no such di lemma . The lapse Of a century has left Richel ieu (describedby Macaulay as “an Old fop who had passed his l i fe fromsixteen to sixty in seducing women for whom he carednot one straw” ) still al ive and familiar . What peoplecal l vice is eternal : what they call virtue is mere fashion .

306


Consequently,though Mr. Waller ’s is the most forcible

acting in the piece—though he alone selects and em

phasiz es the dramatically s ignificant points which leadthe spectator clearly through the story , yet hi s performance stands out flagrantly as a tour de force o f actingand not as life ; whilst Mr. Tree , w ho makes no part icular display of hi s powers as an actor except for a moment in

“

the duel with dice, produces a quite suffi cientillusion.

There is one qual i ty which is never absent in Dumas ,and never present in English performances o f h im ; andthat is the voluntary naiveté of humorous clearsightedness . Dumas ’ invariable homage to the delicacy o f his

heroines and the honor of hi s heroes has something in i tof that maxima reverentia wh ich the disillusionment o fmature age pays to the innocence o f youth . He handleshis lovers as if they were pretty children, giving themthe charm of childhood when he can, and unconsciouslybetraying a wide distinction in his ownmind between theideal virtues which he gives them as a romantic sinnermight give golden candlesticks to a saint’s altar, and thereal ones which he is prepared to practise as well aspreach—high personal loyalty, for instance . Hence it

i s that hi s stories are always light-hearted and free fromthat pressure of moral responsibi l ity without which anEnglishman would burst like a fish dragged up fromthe floo r Of the Atlantic deeps . At Her Majesty s thetw o performers with the strongest sense o f comedy—Mrs .Tree and Mr. Lionel Brough—do contrive to bear theburden of public morali ty easily ; but the rest care ful lyclear themselves of all suspicion of Continental levity :even Richel ieu contrives to convey that whatever mayhappen in the Marquise’s bedroom , he will be found at

307


the strait gate in the narrow way punctually at eleventhe next Sunday morning.

, As to Miss Millard, she impersonated Madamoiselle de Belleisle with the mostchastising propriety. She evidently knew al l about Richelieu

’

s ways from the beginning, and was simply lyingin wait for effective opportunities Of

,

pretending to beamazed and horrified at them . I have seen nothing more

ladylike on the stage. It was magnificent ; but it wasnot Dumas .

Miss Gigia Filippi—sister’

, I presume, to that cleveractress Miss Rosina Filippi—played the waiting-maidMariette according to a conception Of her art uponwhichI shall preach a little sermon, because

'

I believe it.to be

a misleading conception, and because nevertheless i t isone which no less an exponent o f stage art than MissEllen Terry has carried out with undeniable success . Itcame about, as I guess , in this way . Miss Terry, as weall know , went on the stage inher childhood, and notonly ‘‘picked-up

” her profession, but ,was systematically

taught it by Mrs . Charles Kean, with the result that tothis day her business is always thoroughly well done,and her part gets over the footlights to the ends of thehouse without loss of a syllable or the waste Of a stroke .But i f Mrs . Charles Kean qualified her to be the heroine

o f a play, Nature presently qual ified her tobe the heroineof a picture by

'

making her grow,up q uite unlike anybody

that had ever been seen on earth before .

"

I trust Naturehas not broken the mould : i f she has, Miss Terry

’s portraits will go down to posterity as those o f the only realNew Woman, who Wasnever repeated afterwards . Thegreat painters promptly pounced on her as they did onMrs . Morris and Mrs ; Stillman . She added what shelearnt in the Studio to what she had already learnt on


not have any pictorial stuff or roulade at all—will noteven have the old compromise by which drama was disguised and denatural ized in adaptations o f the decorativeforms . The decorative play, with its versified rhetoric,its timid little moments of feel ing and blusterous bigmoments o f raving nonsense, must now step down tothe second-class audience, which is certainly more numerous and lucrative than the first-class , but is beingslowly dragged after it in spite of its reinforcement ofi ts resistence by the th ird-class audience hanging on toits coat tails . It screams and kicks most piteously duringthe process ; but it will have to submit ; for the publicmust finally take, willy-nilly, what its greatest artistschoose to give it, or else do without art. And so eventhe second-class public, though it stil l likes plenty o f pictorial beauty and distinction (meaning mostly expensive

ness and gentility) in the setting, and plenty of comfortable optimistic endearment and cheap fun in the sub

stance,nevertheless needs far more continuous drama

to bind the whole together and compel sustained attention and interest than it did twenty years ago . Gonsequently the woman who now comes on the stage withcarefully cultivated qual ifications as an artist’s model ,and none as an actress , no longer finds hersel f fittingexactly into leading parts even in the fashionable dramao f the day, and automatical ly driving the real actresses offthe stage . Miss Ellen Terry innocently created a wholeschool of such pictorial leading ladies . They went tothe Lyceum

,where, not being skilled critics, they recog

niz ed the heroine ’s pictorial triumphs as art, whilst taking such occasional sallies o f acting as the Shakespeareantouches of nature

” admitted of as the spontaneous operation of Miss Terry’s own charming individuality . I am

310


not sure that I have not detected that simple-mindedTerry‘ theory in more critical quarters . The art, of

course,lay on the side where it was least suspected . The

nervous athleticism and trained expertness which haveenabled Miss Terry, without the least appearance of

violence,to hold her audiences with an unfai l ing grip in

a house which is no bandbox, and where real ly weakacting

,as

'

w e have often seen, drifts away under thestage door and leaves the audience coughing, are onlyknown by their dissimulative effect : that is , they are notknown at all for what they really are ; whereas the pictorial business , five-sixths o f which is done by trustingto nature, proceeds, as to the other sixth , by perfectlyobvious methods . In th is way, an unenl ightened obser

vation of Miss Ellen Terry produced the “aesthetic” act

ress, or l iving picture. Such a conception o f stage artcame very eas ily to a generation o f young ladies whosenotions of art were centered by the Slade School and theGrosvenor Gallery .

Now Miss Gigia Filippi is original enough not todirectly imitate Miss Terry or any other individual artist . But I have never seen the pictorial conception carried out with greater industry and integrity . Miss Fi l ippiwas on the stage when the curtain went up ; and beforeit was out of sight I wanted a kodak . Every movementended in a picture , not a Burne-Jones or Rossetti , but adark-eyed , red-cheeked, full-l ipped, pearly-toothed , co

quettish Fildes or Van Haanen. The success of the exhibition almost justified the labor it must have cost.But that is not acting. It is a string that a finishedactress may add to her bow i f she has the faculty for i t,l ike Miss Terry ; but as a Changel ing for acting it willnot do, especially in a play by Dumas . When Miss Fil

311


ippi‘

speaks, she takes pains to make her voice soft andmusical ; but as she has never had a competent personsitting in the gallery to throw things at her head the

moment she became unintel ligible, the consonants oftensl ip away unheard, and nothing remains but a musicalmurmur of vowels, soothing to the ear, but baffling andexasperating to people whose chief need at the momenti s to find out what the play is about. On the other

'

sideof the Haymarket Miss Dairolles has a precisely similarpart . Miss Dairolles seeks first to l ive as the cleverlady’s-maid of the play in the imagination o f the audience ; and all the other things are added unto her withoutmuch preoccupation on her part . Miss Fil ippi prefersto stand composing pretty pictures , and exhibiting eachof them for nearly hal f a minute, instead o f for the tenthpart of a second, as a skilled actress would . Now aneffect prolonged for even an instant after artists andaudience have become conscious o f it is recognized as

an end with the artist instead o f a means , and so ceasesto be an effect at all . It i s only applauded by Partridge,with his “anybody can see that the king is an actor,

”

or, in Miss Filippi’s case, by dramatically obtuse painters

and S lade School students on the watch for pictureseverywhere . I earnestly advise Miss Filippi to disregardtheir praises and set about finding a substitute for Mrs .Charles Kean at once.

31:


impostor, poetic justice must have proclaimed that itserved Mr . Forbes Robertson right. But alas ! the wilyWilliam , by l iterary tricks which our simple Sir Henryhas never quite understood , has played into Mr . ForbesRobertson’s hands so artfully that the scheme is a prodigious success . The effect of this success , coming after

that of Mr . Alexander’s experiment with a Shakespeareanversion of “As You Like It,

” makes it almost probablethat we shal l presently find managers vieing with eachother in offering the public as much o f the original Shakespearean stuff as possible, instead of, as heretofore, doingtheir utmost to reassure us that everything that the mostmodern resources can do to rel ieve the irreducible minimum of tedium inseparable from even the most heavilycut acting version will be lavished on their revivals . Itis true that Mr . Beerbohm Tree sti l l holds to the oldscepticism , and calmly proposes to insult us by offeringus Carrick’s puerile and horribly caddish knockaboutfarce of “Katherine and Petruchio” for Shakespeare ’s“Taming of the Shrew” ; but Mr . Tree, l ike all romanticactors

,i s incorrigible on the subj ect of Shakespeare .

Mr. Forbes Robertson is essentially a classical actor,the only one, with the exception o f Mr . Alexander, nowestabl ished in London management . What I mean by”classical is that he can present a dramatic hero as a manwhose passions are those which have produced the phi losOphy, the poetry, the art, and the statecraft of the world ,and not merely those which have produced its weddings ,

V-coroner’s inquests, and executions . And that is j ust thesort of actor that Hamlet requires . A Hamlet who onlyunderstands his love for Ophelia, his grief for his father ,his vindictive hatred o f his uncle, his fear of ghosts , hisimpulse to snub Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and the

14


sportsman’s excitement with which he lays the “mouse

trap” for Claudius , can , with sufficient force or virtuosityo f execution , get a great reputation in the part, eventhough the very intensity o f his obsession by these sentiments (which are common not only to al l men but tomany animals ) , shows that the characteristic side of

Hamlet, the side that differentiates h im from Fortinbras ,i s absolutely outside the actor’s consciousness . Such areputation is the actor ’s

,not Hamlet’s . Hamlet is not a

man in whom “common humanity” i s raised by great

vital energy to a heroic pitch, like Coriolanus or Othello .

On the contrary, he is a man in whom the common personal passions are so superseded by wider and rarer interests, and so discouraged by a degree of critical selfconsciousness which makes the practica l effi ciency o f theinstinctive man on the lower plane impossible to him ,

that he finds the duties dictated by conventional revengeand ambition as disagreeable a burden as commerce is toa poet . Even his instinctive sexual impulses offend his

intel lect ; so that when he meets the woman who excitesthem he invites her to join him in a bitter and scornfulcriticism o f their joint absurdity, demanding

“Whatshould such fellows as I do crawl ing between heaven andearth ? ” “Why would’st thou be a breeder of sinners ? ”

and so forth, al l of which is so completely beyond thepoor girl that she naturally thinks him mad . And , in

deed, there is a sense in which Hamlet is insane ; for hetrips over the mistake which lies on the threshold of intellectual self-consciousness : that of bringing l i fe to

utili tarian or Hedonistic tests , thus treating it as a meansinstead of an end . Because Polonius is “a foolish pratingknave,

” because Rosencrantz and Gui ldenstern are snobs ,he kills them as remorselessly as he might kill a flea ,

315


showing that he has no real bel ief in the superstitiousreason which he gives for not killing himself, and in factanticipating exactly the whole course o f the intellectualhistory of Western Europe until Schopenhauer found theclue that Shakespeare missed . But to cal l Hamlet madbecause he did not anticipate Schopenhauer is l ike callingMarcel lus mad because he did not refer the Ghost to thePsychical Society . It is in fact not possible for any actorto represent Hamlet as mad . He may (and generallydoes ) combine some notion o f his own of a man who isthe creature o f affectionate sentiment with the figuredrawn by the l ines o f Shakespeare ; but the result is nota madman , but simply one o f those monsters producedby the imaginary combination o f two normal species , suchas sphinxes

,mermaids

,or centaurs . And this is the in

variable resource o f the instinctive , imaginative, romanticactor . You will see him weeping buckets ful of tears overOphel ia, and treating the players , the gravedigger, Horatio, Rosencrantz and

‘

Guildenstern as i f they were mutesat his own funeral . But go and watch Mr . Forbes Robertson ’s Hamlet seizing delightedly on every opportunity fora bit of phi losophic discussion or artistic recreation toescape from the “cursed spite” of revenge and love andother common troubles ; see how he brightens up whenthe players come ; how he tries to talk philosophy withRosencrantz and Gui ldenstern the moment they comeinto the room ; how he stops on his country walk withHoratio to lean over the churchyard wal l and draw out

the gravedigger whom he sees singing at his trade ; howeven his fits of excitement find expression in declaimingscraps of poetry ; how the shock of Ophelia’s death re

lieves itsel f in the fiercest intel lectual contempt forLaertes

’

s ranting, whilst an hour afterwards, when


right man with the right mind for it—how the story tellsitself, how the characters come to life, how even thefailures 1n the cast cannot confuse you, though they maydisappoint you . And Mr . Forbes Robertson has certainlynot escaped such failures, even in his own family. Istrongly urge him to take a h int from Claudius and makea real ghost of Mr . Ian Robertson at once ; for there i sreally no use in going through that scene night afternight with a Ghost who is so solidly, comfortably anddogmatically al ive as his brother. The voice is not a badvoice ; but it is the voice of a man who does not believein ghosts . Moreover, it i s a hungry voice, not that o fone who is past eating. There is an indescribable littlecomplacent drop at the end o f every line which no soonercalls up the image of purgatory by its words than by itssmug elocution it convinces us that this particular penitentis cosily warming his shins and toasting his muffin at theflames instead o f exp iating his bad acting in the midst ofthem . His aspect and bearing are worse than his recitations . He beckons Hamlet away like a beadle summoninga timid candidate for the post of j unior footman to thepresence of the Lord Mayor . I f I were Mr . Forbes Robertson I would not stand that from any brother : I wouldcleave the general ear with horrid speech at him first .

It is a pity ; for the Ghost’s part is one of the wonders

of the play . And yet,until Mr. Courtenay Thorpe divined

it the other day,nobody seems to have had a glimpse o f

the reason w hy Shakespeare would not trust any one elsewith it, and played it himsel f. The weird music of thatlong speech which should be the spectral wail of a soul ’sbitter wrong crying from one world to another in the extremity of its torment, i s invariably handed over to themost squaretoed member of the company, who makes it

318


sound, not l ike Rossetti

’s “Sister Helen, or even , to sug

gest a possible heavy treatment, l ike Mozart’

s statueghost

,but like Chambers’s Information for the People .

Still,I can understand Mr. Ian Robertson, by sheer

force of a certain quality of sententiousness in him , overbearing the management into casting him for the Ghost.

What I cannot understand is why Miss Granvi lle wascast for the Queen . It is l ike setting a fashionable modernmandolinist to play Haydn’s sonatas . She does her bestunder the circumstances ; but she would have been morefortunate had she been in a position to refuse the part .On the other hand, several of the impersonations areconspicuously successful . Mrs. Patrick Campbell ’sOphel ia is a surprise . The part is one which has hithertoseemed incapable o f progress . From generation to generation actresses have, in the mad scene, exhausted theirmusical ski ll , their ingenuity in devising fantasias in thelanguage of flowers , and their intensest powers of portraying anxious ly earnest sanity . Mrs . Patrick Campbell,with that complacent audacity of hers which is so exasperating when she is doing the wrong th ing, this timedoes the right thing by making Ophelia really mad . Theresentment o f the audience at th is outrage is hardly tobe described . They long for the strenuous mental graspand attentive coherence o f Miss Lily Hanbury ’s conception of maiden lunacy ; and th is wandering, silly, vagueOphelia, w ho no sooner catches an emotional impulsethan it dri fts away from her again

,emptying her voice

o f its tone in a way that makes one shiver, makes themhorribly uncomfortable . But the effect on the play isconclusive . The shrinking discomfort of the King andQueen, the rankling gr ief o f Laertes , are created by itat once ; and the scene, instead of being a pretty interlude

319


coming in j ust when a little relief from the inky cloakis welcome, touches us with a ch ill of the blood that givesi t is right tragic power and dramatic significance . Playgoers naturally murmur when someth ing that has alwaysbeen pretty becomes painful ; but the pain is good forthem , good for the theatre, and good for the play. Idoubt whether Mrs. Patrick Campbell fully appreciatesthe dramatic value of her quite simple and original sketch—it is only a sketch—of the part ; but in spite o f the occasional trivial ity of its execution and the petulance withwhich it has been received, it seems to me to finally settlein her favor the question of her right to the very important place which Mr . Forbes Robertson has assignedto her in his enterprises .I did not see Mr . Bernard Gould play Laertes : he wasindisposed when I returned to town and hastened to theLyceum ; but he was replaced very creditably by Mr .Frank Dyall . Mr . Martin Harvey is the best Osric I haveseen : he plays Osric from Osric’s own point of view ,

which is , that Osric is a gallant and distinguished courtier,and not, as usual , from Hamlet

’s,which is that Osric is

“a waterfly.

” Mr . Harrison Hunter hits off the modest,honest Horatio capitally ; and Mr. Willes is so good aGravedigger that I venture to suggest to him that heshould carry his work a little further, and not virtual lycease to concern himsel f with the play when he has spokenhis last line and handed Hamlet the skul l . Mr . CooperCliff e is not exactly a subtle Claudius ; but he looks asi f he had stepped out of a picture by Madox Brown , andplays straightforwardly onhis very successful appearance .

Mr . Barnes makes Polonius robust and elderly instead ofaged and garrulous . H e i s good in the scenes where

Polonius appears as a man of character and experience ;

320


itors in effect and originality, have regarded Fortinbras,and the clue he gives to this kingly death for Hamlet

,as

a wildly unpresentable blunder of the poor fool ish oldSwan, than whom they al l knew so much better ! Howsweetly they have died in that faith to slow music, l ikeLittle Nell in “The Old Curiosity Sh0p” ! And now how

completely Mr . Forbes Robertson has bowled them al lout by being clever enough to be simple .

By the way, talking of slow music, the sooner Mr .Hamilton Clarke’s romantic Irving music i s stopped

,the

better . Its effect in this Shakespearean version of theplay is absurd . The four Offenbachian young womenin tights should also be abolished, and the part of theplayer-queen given to a man . The courtiers should betaught how flatteringly courtiers l isten when a king Showsoff his wisdom in wise speeches to his nephew . And thatnice wooden beach on which the ghost walks would bethe better for a seaweedy- looking cloth on it, with a handful of shrimps and a pennorth of silver sand .

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'AT SEVERAL THEATRES

Francillon. From the French of Alexandre Dumasfils . A comedy in three acts. Duke o f York’sTheatre.

As Yon Like I t. Grand Theatre, Islington, 4 October, 1897.

The Liars : a new and original comedy. By H enryArthur Jones. CriterionTheatre, 6 October, 1897.

NEV ER see Miss Ada Rehan act without burning topresent Mr. Augustin Daly with a delightful v illain St. Helena , and a commission from an influential

committee of his admirers to produce at his leisure acomplete set of Shakespeare

’s plays, entirely rewritten ,reformed , rearranged , and brought up to the most ad

‘

vanced requirements of the year 1850. He w as in fullforce at the Isl ington Theatre on Monday evening lastwith his version o f

“As You Like It” just as I don’t l ikeit. There I saw Amiens under the greenwood tree ,braving winter and rough weather in a pair of crimsonplush breeches , a spectacle to benumb the mind and oh

scure the passions . There was Orlando with the harmonyof his brown boots and tunic torn asunder by a piercingdiscord o f dark volcanic green , a walking tribute to Mr .

Daly’s taste in tights . There did I hear slow music stealing up from the band at all the well-known recitationsof Adam , Jacques and Rosalind, lest w e should for amoment forget that w e were in a theatre and not in theforest of Arden . There did I look through practicabledoors in the walls of sunny orchards into an abyss ofpitchy darkness . There saw I in the attitudes , grace and

323


deportment of the forest dwellers the plastique o f anArcadian past . And the music synchronized with i t al lto perfection, from La Grande Duchesse” and “Dichterund Bauer,

” conducted by the leader o f the band,to the

inevi table old Engl ish airs conducted by the haughtymusician who i s Mr . Daly’s special property. And tothink that Mr. Daly will die in his bed, whilst innocentpresidents of republics , who never harmed an immortalbard, are fal ling on all s ides under the knives of wel lintentioned reformers whose only crime is that they assassinate the wrong people ! And yet let me be magnanimous. I confess I would not like to see Mr. Daly assassinated: St. Helena would satis fy me. For Mr. Dalywas in his prime an advanced man relatively to his owntime and place, and was a real manager, with definiteartistic aims which he trained his company to accomplish .

H is Irish-American Yanko-German comedies , as playedunder his management by Ada Rehan and Mrs . Gi lbert,John Drew , Otis Skinner and the late James Lewis , turneda page in theatrical history here, and secured him a position in London which was never questioned unti l i t became apparent that he was throwing away Miss Rehan’s

genius . When, after the complete discovery o f her giftsby the London publ ic

,Mr. Daly could find no better em

ployment for her than in a revival of “Dollars and Cents,”

his annihilation and Miss Rehan’

s rescue became thecritic’s first duty. Shakespeare saved the situation fora time, and got severely damaged in the process ; but“The Countess Gucki” convinced me that in Mr . Daly ’shands Miss Rehan’s talent was l ikely to be lost not onlyto the modern drama, but to the modern Shakespeareanstage : that is to say, to the indispensable conditions o fits own fullest development . No doubt starring in Daly

324


lead, first old man, heavy lead, heavy father, principalcomedian and leading lady, transfiguredby magical wordmusic. The Shakespearolators who are taken in by itdo not know drama in the classical sense from “drama”

in the technical Adelphi sense . You have only to compare Orlando and Rosalind with Bertram and Helena,the Duke and Touchstone with Leontes and Autolycus ,to learn the difference from Shakespeare himself . Therefore I cannot j udge from Miss Rehan’

s enchanting Rosalind whether she is a great Shakespearean actress or notthere is even a sense in which I cannot tell whether shecan act at all or not . So far, I have never seen her createa character : she has always practised the same adorablearts onme, by whatever name the playbill has called her- Nancy Brasher

, (ugh l) , Viola, or Rosalind. I havenever complained : the drama with all its heroines levelledup to a universal Ada Rehan has seemed no such drearyprospect to me ; and her voice, compared to Sarah Bernhardt

’

s 210121: d’

or, has been as al l the sounds of the woodland to the ch inking of twenty-franc pieces . In Shakespeare (what Mr . Daly leaves of him ) she was and isirresistible : at Islington on Monday she made me cryfaster than Mr. Daly could make me swear. But thecritic in me is bound to insist that Ada Rehan has as yetcreated nothing but Ada Rehan . She will probably neverexcel that masterpiece ; but why should she not superim

pose a character study or two on it ? Duse’

s greatestwork is Duse ; but that does not prevent Césarine, Santuz za and Cami lle from being three totally different w omen, none of them Duses , though Duse is al l of them . MissRehan would charm everybody as Mirandolina as ef

fectually as Duse does . But how about Magda ? It is

because nobody in England knows the answer to that

326


question that nobody in England as yet knows whetherAda Rehan 1s a creative artist or a mere virtuosa .

“The Liars,

” Mr . Henry Arthur Jones ’3 new comedy,i s one o f h is l ighter works, written with due indulgenceto the Criterion company and the playgoing publ ic . Itssubject is a common enough social episode—a marriedlady sailing too close to the wind in a fl i rtation , and herfriends and relatives interposing to half hustle , hal f coaxthe husband and wife into a reconciliation, and the gallantoff to Africa . Mr . Jones has extracted from this al l thedrama that can be got from it without sacrificing verisim ilitude, or spoil ing the reassuring common sense o f

the conclusion . Its interest, apart from its wealth o f

comedy, lies in its very keen and accurate picture of smartsociety . Smart society will probably demur, as i t alwaysdoes to views of it obtained from any standpoint outsideitsel f. Mr. Jones

’s detachment is absolute : he describe sMayfair as an English traveller describes the pygmies orthe Zulus, caring very l ittle about the common humanperversities o f which (bel ieving them , o f course , to bethe caste-mark of their class ) they are so self- importantlyconscious , and being much tickled by the morally signif

icant pecularities of which they are not conscious at all .“Society” is intensely parochial , intensely conceited, and ,outside that art of fashionable li fe for which it has spe

cializ ed itsel f, and in which it has acquired a fairly artistictechnique , trivial , vulgar and horribly tiresome. Its conceit , however, i s not o f the personal ly self-complacentkind . Within its own l imits it does not flatter itsel f : on

the contrary, being ch ronical ly bored with itsel f, it positively delights in the most savage and embittered satireat its own expense from its own point of view . For example, Thackeray, who belonged to it and hated it, i s

327


admired and endorsed by it, because, with all hi s rancoragainst its failings , he took Hyde Park Corner as thecosmic headquarters , a Ptolemaic mistake which savedhis gentility throughout al l his Thersites rail ings at it .Charles Dickens , on the other hand

,could never be a

gentleman, because it never occurred to him to look atfashionable society otherwise than from the moral andindustrial centres o f the community, in which position hewas necessarily “an outsider” from the point of view o f

the parishioners of St . James of Piccadilly and St . Georgeof Hanover Square . That this outside position could bea position of advantage, even to a literary l ion flatteringlypetted and freely fed at the parish tables , is a conceptionimpossible to the insider, since if he thought so , he wouldat once, by that thought, be placed outside . All fictionwhich deals with fashionable society as a class exhibitsthis division into Thackeray and Dickens— into the insider and the outsider. For my own part I recommendthe outside, because it is possible for the outsider to comprehend and enjoy the works of the insiders,

_whereas theycan never comprehend his . From Dickens ’s point o f

view Thackeray and Trollope are fully available, whilstfrom their point of view Dickens is deplorable. Just sowith Mr . Jones and Mr . Pinero . Mr . Jones ’s pictures ofsociety never seem truthful to those who see ladies andgentlemen as they see themselves . They are restrictedto Mr. Pinero’s plays , recognizing in them alone poeticjustice to the charm o f good society . But those who appreciate Mr . Jones accommodate themselves without difficulty to Mr. Pinero

’s range, and so enjoy both . In thelatest plays of these two authors the difference is verymarked. The pictures of fashionable li fe in “The Prin

cess and the Butterfly ,”containing, i f we except the mere

328


The conscientious trans l iteration ( for the most part)o f the “Francillon” of Dumas fils at the Duke of York’sTheatre makes a very tolerable evening’s amusement. Itis, of course, only here to get hallmarked as a Londonsuccess , and is planned to impress

'

unsophisticated au

diences as an exceedingly dashing and classy representation of high l i fe . Mrs . Brown Potter is unsparing of thebeauties of her wardrobe, and indeed o f her own

’

person.

She seems , as far as I can judge , congenital ly incapableof genuine impersonation ; but she has coached hersel finto a capital imitation of a real French actress playingthe part, which she thoroughly understands . Saving oneor tw o lapses into clowning for provincial laughs, herperformance is not a bad specimen of manufacturedacting. The best manufactured acting I ever saw wasModj eska’s . It was much stricter , adroiter, finer, cleverer,more elaborate and erudite than Mrs . Brown Potter ’s ;but Modjeska waS

'

not genial . Mrs . Brown Potter i sgenial . Her good looks are unimpaired ; and only thevery hard-hearted wi ll feel much i ll used by her shortcomings

,especial ly as she is wel l supported in a good

play, careful ly managed and staged up to the point ofmaking several prolonged passages of pure pantomimequite successful . Mr . Bellew should stay in London awhile

, to brush away a few trifl ing stage habits which,l ike the comedy itsel f

,begin to date a l ittle . He plays

with his old grace and much more than his old skill andease

,in the quiet style of the eighties , which is also re

vived with success by Messrs . Elwood, Thursby andBeauchamp. Mr. J . L . Mackay keeps to his own some

what later date, not unwisely, as Stanislas .

330

THE THEATRES

Never Again: a farcical comedy in three acts. By

Maurice Desvalliéres andAntony Mars . V audevilleTheat re , I I October, 1897.

One Summer's Day : a love story in three acts. By

H . V . Esmond. Comedy Theatre .

The White H eather. By Cecil Raleigh and H enryHamilton. Drury Lane Theatre .

CAN hardly estimate ofihand how many v isits to“Never Again” at the Vaudevi l le would enable anacute acrostician to unravel its plot . Probably not

less than seventeen . It may be that there is really noplot, and that the whole bewildering tangle of names andrelationships is a sham . If so ,

it shows how superfluousa real plot is . In this play every one who opens a doorand sees somebody outside it utters a yel l of dismay andslams the door to as if the fiend in person had kno ckedat it. When anybody enters a room , he or she is receivedwith a roar of confusion and terror, and franticallyej ected by bodily violence . The audience doe s not knowwhy ; but as each member o f it thinks he ought to, andbel ieves that his neighbor does , he echoes the yell of theactor with a shout o f laughter ; and so the piece “goes”

immensely . It is , to my taste, a vulgar, stupid, noisy,headachy, tedious business . One actor, Mr . FerdinandGottschalk, shows remarkable talent, both as actor andmimic, in the part of a German musician ; but this character is named Katzenjammer

,which can produce no ef

feet whatever on those who do not know what it means ,and must sicken those who do . There is of course aShakespearean precedent in “Twelfth Night” ; but even

3SI


in the spacious times of great Elizabeth they did not keeprepeating Sir Toby’s surname all over

'

the stage, whereasth is play is all Katzenjammer : the word is thrown in theface of the audience every tw o or three minutes . Un

fortunately this is only part of the puerile enjoyment ofmischief and coarseness for their own sakes which ischaracteristic not so much of the play as of the methodof its presentation . And as that method is aggressivelyAmerican, and is apparently part of a general design on

Mr. Charles Frohman’s part to smarten up our stagehabits by Americanizing them, it raises a much largerquestion than the merits of an insignificant version of aloose French farce .

I need hardly point out to intelligent Americans thatany diff erence which exists between American methodsand English ones must necessarily present itself to theAmerican as an inferiority on the part of the English, andto the Englishman as an inferiority on the part of theAmericans ; for it is obvious that i f the two nations wereagreed as t o the superiority of any particular method,they would both adopt it, and the difference would disappear, s1ncc it can hardly be seriously contended that theaverage English actor cannot, if he chooses, do anythingthat the average American actor can do, or vice versa .

Consequently nothing is more natural and inevitable thanthat Mr . Frohman

,confronted with Engl ish stage busi

ness , should feel absolutely confident that he can alter itfor the better . But it does not at al l follow that the Engl ish publ ic wi ll agree with him . For example , i f in afarcieal comedy a contfetemps i s produced by the arrivalof an unwelcome visitor, and the English actor extricateshimsel f from the difficulty by hal f bowing, half coaxingthe intruder out, it may seem to Mr. Frohman much fun

2


The routine of melodrama and farcical comedy is not afine art : it i s an industry ; and in it the industrial qualitiesof the Americans shine out . Their companies are smarter,better drilled, work harder and faster, waste less time,and know their business better than English companies .They do not select duff ers when they can help it ; andthough the duff er may occasionally get engaged fautede mieux, as a dog gets eaten during a siege , he does notfind that there is a living

’

for h im in melodrama,and so

gets driven into the fashionable drama of the day, inwhich he will easily obtain engagements i f he convincesthe manager that he is a desirable private acquaintance .A good deal o f the technique acquired by American actorsno doubt makes one almost long for the fatuous

'

com

placency of the Briti sh“walker-on” ; but still it is at

least an accomplishment which raises its possessor abovethe level o f an unskilled laborer ; and the value of a wel ldirected systematic cultivation of executive skill will beappreciated by any one who compares the speech of MissMaud Jeffries and the physical expertness of Miss FayDavis with those of Engl ish actresses of their own ageand standing. Now in so far as Mr. Frohman’s Americanizations tend to smarten the organization of Engl ishstage business, and to demand from every actor at leastsome scrap of trained athleticism of speech and movement, they are welcome . So far, too , as the influence ofa bright, brainy people , ful l o f fun and curiosity, canwake our drama up from the half-asleep, half-drunk delirium

,

of brainless sentimental ity in which i t is apt towallow

,it will be a good influence . But in so far as it

means mechanical horseplay, prurient pleasantries , anddeliberate nastinesses of the Katzenjammer order, it isour business to reform the Americans , not theirs to re

334


form us . When it comes to the stupidities , follies andgrossnesses of the stage, w e may safely be left to ournative resources, which have never yet failed us in suchmatters .The only notable addition to the Vaudeville company

is Mr . Al lan Aynesworth, w ho keeps up the fun with anunsparing devotion to a bad play which must be extremely touch ing to the author . I do not believe he understands the plot, because no man cando what is impossible ; but he quite persuades the audience that he does .One Summer’s Day” at the Comedy Theatre is a play

written by Mr . Esmond to please himse lf. Some playsare written to please the author ; some to please the actormanager ( these are the worst ) some to please the public ;and some—my own

,for instance —to please nobody .

Next to my plan , I prefer Mr . Esmond’s ; but it un

doubtedly leads to self- indulgence . When Mr . Esmond,in the third act of a comedy, slaughters an innocent littleboy to squeeze tw o pennorth of sentiment out of his

mangled body , humanity protests . I f Mr. Esmond werehard to move, one might . excuse him for resorting to extreme measures . But he is , on the contrary , a highlysusceptible man . He gets a perfect ocean o f sentimentout of Dick and Dick’s pipe . I f you ask w ho Dick was,I reply that that is not the point. It is in the name Dick—in its tender familiarity, its unaffected good-nature, its

modest sincerity, its combination of womanly affectionateness with manly strengt h , that the charm resides . If yousay that the name Dick does not convey this to you,

I canonly say that it does to Mr. Esmond when associated witha pipe ; and that i f your imagination is too sluggish or

prosaic to see it, then that is your misfortune and not Mr.Esmond

’

s fault . He cherishes Dick more consistently

335


than Thackeray cherished Colonel Newcome ; for he tellsyou nothing unpleasant, and indeed nothing credible,about him ; whereas Thackeray, being daimonic as wellas sentimental , must paint his Colonel remorselessly asa fool

,humbug and swindler with one hand, whilst vainly

claiming the world’s aff ection for him with the other .Dick ’s drawbacks are not hinted at. Provided you takehim on trust, and Maysie on trust, and indeed everybodyelse on trust,

“One Summer

’s Day” is a quite touchingplay . Mr . Hawtrey has finally to dissolve in tears, likethe player in “Hamlet” ; and he does it like a true comedian : that is, in earnest, and consequently almost dis

tressingly . That is the penalty o f comedianship : it involves humanity, which forbids its possessor to

~

enjoygrief . Your true pathetic actor is a rare mixture ofmonstrous callousness and monstrous vanity . To himsuffering means nothing but a bait to catch sympathy.

He enjoys his mal ingering ; and so does the audience .Mr . Hawtrey does not enjoy it ; and the result is an impression of genuine grief, which makes it seem quitebrutal to stare at him . Fortunately, this is only for amoment

,at the end of the play, j ust after Mr . Esmond

’smassacre of the innocent. For the rest, he is as entertaining as ever, and happily much smoother, pleasanter,sunnier and younger than Mr. Esmond evidently intendedDick to be . I real ly could not have stood Dick i f he hadgone through with the Dobbin-Newcome formula, androbbed good-nature of g race and self-respect. The comicpart o f the play has a certain youthful ly mischievousqual ity, which produces good entertainment with a lovesick schoolboy, excellently played by Mr. KennethDouglas

,and an impossible but amusing urchin imper

sonatedby Master Bottomley. But Mrs . Bendyshe, whose


i s much more successful in this respect. As I saw TheWhite Heather” from a rather remote corner of the stalls ,distance may have lent my view some enchantment ; butas far as I could see, Mr. Col l ins does not, i f he can helpit, pay an extravagant sum for a dress , and then put iton the back of a young lady who obviously could nothave become possessed of i t by ladylike means . His casting o f principal parts is also much better : he goes straightto the mark with Mrs . John Wood where Sir Augustuswould have missed it with Miss Fanny Brough (an habitually underparted tragi-comic actress ) and he refinesthe whole play by putting Miss Kate Rorke and MissBeatrice Lamb into parts which would formerly have beengiven respectively to a purely melodramatic heroine andvillainness. Indeed he has in one instance overshot themark in improving the company ; for though he has t eplaced the usual funny man with a much higher class ofcomedian in Mr . De Lange, the authors have abj ectlyfailed to provide the actor with anything better

'

than thepoorest sort of clowning part ; and as Mr . De Lange isnot a clown, he can only help the play, at a sacrifice of“comic relief, by virtually suppressing the buffoonerywith which the authors wanted to spoil it . In short,everything is improved at Drury Lane except the drama,which, though very ingeniously adapted to its purpose,and not without flashes o f wit (mostly at its own expense ) , remains as mechanical and as void of rea l dramatic i llusion as the equal ly ingenious contrivances o f

the lock up the river , the descent of the divers and theircombat under the sea, the Stock Exchange, and the re

production o i the costume ball at Devonshire House .Naturally, though there is plenty o f competent actingthat amply fulfils the requirements of the occasion, the

338


principals have nothing to do that can add to their established reputations . Mr . Robert Loraine as Dick Beachwas new to me ; but he played so well that I concluded

that it was I, and not Mr. Loraine, who was the novicein the matter.

ROMANCE IN ITS LAST DITCH

The V agabondKing : a play in four acts. By LouisN . Parker. Theatre Metropole, Camberw ell. 18

October, 1897 .

HE production of Mr . Louis Parker ’s play at asuburban theatre last Monday was an expecteddevelopment inan unexpected place . A few years

ago some of the central theatres began trying very hardwhich could stoop lowest to meet the rising tide o f popular interest in fiction of all sorts . Most o f the attempts

failed because they went back to the obsolete methods ofthe days when audiences were ill iterate as well as ignorant . Now audiences are still ignorant ; but they are nolonger illiterate : on the contrary, they are becoming sobookish that they actually repudiate and ridicule claptrap and sentiment of purely theatrical extraction

,and

must have both adapted to a taste educated by inveteratenovel-reading. Formerly a man who had never reada novel but knew the stage and the playgoing publ ic,was a more trustw orthy provider of artificial substitutesfor genuine drama than the cleverest novelist . Nowadaysthe old stager is the most fatal of advisers ; and

“ThePrisoner of Zenda ,

” “Tf ilby, and“Under the Red Robe ,

”

all three specifically literary plays , have swept from the

339


boards the rival attempts that were being made to Wh itechapelize the West End theatres on the old stagey lines .And it is significant that when a literary play failed ,however deservedly, i t was respected in the midst of itsmisfortunes, whereas the stagey plays failed with theextremity of derision, disgrace, and loss o f caste for theirpromoters .

One of the advantages of the literary play was thatit was very easy to act . It completed the process , bythat time far advanced, of adapting the drama to theincompetent acting produced by the long run and toursystem . But it is not possible under a system of com

petitive commerce in theatrical entertainments to maintain extravagant prices for cheap commodities and facileservices . Time was when I demanded again and againwhat the theatres were offering that could induce anysensible person to leave h is comfortable suburban fireside, his i llustrated magazines and books , his piano andhis chessboard, to worry his way by relays o f omnibus ,train and cab to seek admission to a stuffy theatre at acost of a guinea for comfortable seats for himsel f andhis wife . I prophesied the suburban theatre , followingmy usual plan o f prophesying nothing that is not alreadyarrived and at work (and therefore sure to be discoveredby the Engl ish Press general ly in from ten to fifty years ) .

Well , the suburban theatre has come with a rush . Thetheatre within ten minutes ’ walk the four-shilling stal l ,the twopenny program

,the hours admitting o f bed be

fore midnight, have only to be combined with an entertainment equal in qual ity to that o f the West End housesto beat them out of the field . So far from there beingany difliculty about such a combination , the suburbantheatres may be safely defied to produce anything worse

340


up shop or else give an entertainment beyond the reachof suburban art and suburban prices . Mr . Forbes Robertson is doing that at the Lyceum at present : consequentlythe suburban theatres , far from damaging him, are ,as Sir Henry Irving foresaw, simply acting as nurseriesof playgoers for him . But take the case o f the “triplebi l l which has j ust vanished from the Avenue

,perhaps

as a j udgment for playing Mozart’s “Figaro” overturebetween the acts with big drum and cymbals ad lib. alaOffenbach . The triple bill was not bad of its kind : seenfrom a hal f-crown seat at the Lyric Hal l , Eal ing, it wouldhave been excellent value . But why should any man inhis senses have gone miles and paid hal f a guinea tosee it ? Take, again, such a play as

“My Friend thePrince . Is it conceivable that the actors now performing it at the Fulham

,

Grand Theatre, even if they do notplay quite as wel l as the original company at the Garrick

(and I have no reason to suppose they don’t ) , do not at

least act it as well as it need be acted, and get just as loudlaughs when the gentleman sits down on his spur, andall the men come in at the end in the same disguise ? Or

take the rough-and-tumble farcical comedy at the Vaudevi lle ! Am I to be told that Mr . Mulholland could notdo everything for that piece at Camberwel l that Mr .Frohman is doing for it in the Strand, without raisinghis prices one farthing, or even making any particularlyexpensive engagement ?It looks , then, as if the West End theatre were to bedriven back on serious dramatic art after all . Of coursethere will always be the sort o f West End production,supported by deadheads

,which is nothing but a prel im

inary advertisement for the tour of“a London success .

”

Personal successes will be made in very bad plays by

342


popular favorites like Miss Louie Freear and Mr . Penley . But legi timate business at h igh-priced West Endhouses must at last be forced in the direction of betterplays

,probably with the extreme runs shorter than at

present,but most l ikely with the average run longer. And

the better plays will make short work o f the incompetentfashionable actor . When Mr. Forbes Robertson was

wasting his energies on fashionable plays at the Garrickwith Miss Kate Rorke, there was not a pin to choo sebetween him and any other fashionable leading man . In

Hamlet and Joseph Surface there are a good many thousand pounds to choose . When the plays that are no playsare all driven to the suburbs , the actors who are no actorswill have togo after them ; and then perhaps the actorswho are actors will come back .

This is why I began by saying that what has just happened at the Camberw ell Theatre was the expected coming in an unexpected place . The h igher class of playhas appeared , not at the West End, but in the suburbs .The reappearance o f a once famous actress for whom thefashionable stage found no use, and of a few youngerpeople who had exposed themselves to West End managerial suspicion by the exhibition of a specific professioual talent and skill , has occurred on the same occasion .

That, however, is a mere accident. A year ago no WestEnd manager would have considered a play of the classo f The Vagabond King” commerc1ally practicable . Ayear or so hence managers in search of

“high-classdrama” will probably be imploring Mr . Parker to letthem have something as high as possible above the headso f the public. Thus does the Whirligig of time bring itsrevenges .Whoever has glanced at the notices of Mr . Parker’s


play will have gathered here and there that there issomething wrong with it . Now what I wish to conveyis that there is someth ing right with it, and that th issomething right is exactly the something wrong of whichmy romantic col leagues complain . It is true that theytoo find something right with it—something “beauti fuland true,

” as they cal l i t ; but to me this bit o f romanticbeauty and truth is a piece of immoral nonsense thatspoils the whole work. I f Mr . Parker wishes to get onsafe ground as a dramatist, he must take firm hold o f

the fact that the present transition from romantic to sin

cerely human drama is a revolutionary one, and thatthose w ho make half-revolutions dig their own graves .Nothing is easier than for a modern writer only hal fweaned from Romance to mix the tw o , especially inhis youth, when he is pretty sure to have romantic i llusions about women long after he has arrived at a fairlyhuman view of his own sex . This is precisely what hashappened to Mr . Parker. Into the middle of an exiledcourt which has set up its mock throne in furnished lodgings in London, and which he has depicted in an entirelydisillusioned human manner, he drops an ultra-romanticheroine . I f this were done purposely, with the obj ect ofreducing the romantic to absurdity, and preaching the

worth of the real, there are plenty of works , from DonQuixote to

“Arms and the Man,”to j ustify it as the

classic formula of the human school in its controversialstage. Or i f it were done with the shallower purpose ofmerely enjoying the fantastic incongruity of the mixture,then we should have at once the famil iar formula ofcomic opera . But when it is done unconsciously—whenthe artist designs his heroine according to an artificialconvention of moral and physical prettiness , and confess

344,


stern realities from . the comfortable vantage ground of

a pretty cottage at Highgate and a charming wife withmoney enough left to indulge in the smartest frocks .Nothing could be further from the true meaning of li fe ;nothing could pandermore amiably and abj ectly to thatmiserable vital incapacity to which life at its imaginedbest means only what a confectioner’s shop-window meansto a child . It is quite clear that no such experience as thatof the Vagabond King could redeem any man : one mightas well try to refine gold by holding it to the spark of aglowworm . The woman declares that she has sacrificedthis, that and the other, and has nothing left but love( the cottage ~ and dresses not being worth mentioning)but as a matter of fact she has neither lost nor gainedone j ot or tittle, being exactly the same unmeaning ro

mantic convention at the end of the play as at the beginning.

When the world gets a serious fit, and the desire fora true knowledge of the world and a noble li fe in it atall costs arises in men and l i fts them above lusting forthe trivial luxuries and ideals and happy endings o f ro

mance, repudiated by art and chal lenged by rel igion, fal lsback on its citadel , and announces that it has given upall the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and recogniz es that nothing is eternally valid and all-redeemingbut Love . That is to say, the romanticist is blind enoughto imagine that the humanist wil l accept the abandonmentof al l his minor l ies as a bribe for the toleration o f themost impudent of al l l ies . “I am willing to be redeemed ,and even religious, says the converted romanticist,

“ifonly the business be managed by a pretty woman who

will be left in my arms when the curtain falls .” Andthis is just how the Vagabond King gets out o f his dif

346


ficulties. Has Mr. Parker, a disciple of Richard Wagner,forgotten these l ines

“Nicht Gut , nicht Go ld, noch gottliche Pracht ;nicht Haus, nicht H of, noch herrischer Prunk ;nich t riiber V ert rage triigender Bund,noch heuchelnder S itte hartes Gesetzselig inLust und Leid liisst die Liebe nur rein.

There is the arch lie formulated by the master’s hand !But when he completed the work by finding the musicfor the poem ,

he found no music for that : the Nibelungen score is guiltless o f it. I presume Wagner hadby that time made up his mind that a world in wh ich allthe women were piously willing to be redeemed by aSiegfried , and all the men by a Brynhild, would find theirway to the bottomless pit by quite as short a cut as themost cynical of the voluptuaries w ho enjoy themselveswithout claiming divine honors for their passions . Mr .Parker may take my word for it, that Vagabond Kingof his wi ll be damned yet

,in spite o f pretty Stella Des

mond, unless he can find a means to save himself. Hethat would save his soul (not get it saved for him ) mustfirst lose it ; and he must lose it in earnest, and not keepback a pretty woman and a cottage at Highgate afterthe prudent manner o f Ananias .Though this be an adverse criticism, yet it is no smallcompliment to Mr . Parker that he has come within reacho f it. He has fallen like many another artist before him ,

through woman worship,’arter all , an amiable weak

ness ,” as the elder Weller observed o f wife-beating, which

is another mode of the same phenomenon . However,“beautiful and true” may be his assumption that the bestwoman is far better than the best man

,and however

loathsome and cynical may be my assumption that she

347.


is not—nay, that as women are treated at present she isalmost certain, other th ings being equal , to be a good dealworse—I venture to think that Mr . Parker will find thatmore convincing plays can be got out of my assumptionthan out o f his . At the same time I am bound to addthat the very worst real woman I ever “knew was betterthan Mr . Parker ’s paragon, whose conduct, l ike that o f

all romantic heroines, will not stand a moment’s serious

investigation .

The play has a cast which would rank as a strongone at any West-End theatre . Besides Miss Batemanand Miss Lena Ashwell, there i s Miss Phyllis Broughton .

Mr . Murray Carson is the Vagabond King ; Mr . GeorgeGrossmith

,j unior

,the other King, both supported by a

Court including Mr . Sidney Brough, Mr . Gilbert Farquhar, and Mr . L . D . Mannering, who wil l be remembered for some remarkable work in Elizabethan drama .

348


o f hard labor, she might possibly be able to get exerciseenough to keep pace with such Gargantuan meals . Asshe is only a rather sedentary lady, they speedily ruinher complexion and render her incapable Of assimilatingany nourishment at al l . The doctor is called in ; and Ishould unhesitatingly rank Mr . Day with Moliere as adel ineator Of doctors if I could pretend not to see thathe takes his modern Diafoirus with awestruck seriousness , and without the least comedic intention . Neverthe

less w e have had no better bit of comedy this season,nor any truer to l i fe

,than this foolish fashionable doctor

instantly diagnosing a glaring case Of over-feeding asone Of starvation,

” and flying Diafoiresquely into a t a

ging condition of academic indignation with the husbandfor repudiating his prescription of the glass Of wine andthe cutlet . It is to be observed

,as a curious illustration

o f our notions o f family morals , that it never occurs tothe doctor or to anyone else in the play to question thehusband’s right to dictate what his wife shall eat as absolutely as if she were a convict and he the prison doctornay, almost as i f he were a farmer and she one of hisewes being fattened for market . And the doctor

’s rightto dictate what the husband shall order is only disputedin order to prove the lunacy Of the man who questionsi t. The unfortunate patient’s own views are left com

pletely out of account“She shall have cutlet and mar

sala ,” says the doctor . She shan ’t,

” says the husband“she shal l have cucumber pie and cocoa .

” “Cucumberpie isn’t food : she’ll die of it ,” says the doctor .

“Cucumber pie is food,

” retorts the husband : “here’s a pamphletwhich proves it.” And so on. The question is one Of

cucumbers versus corpses , Of the husband’s authority

versus the doctor’s authority : never for a moment is it

350


suggested that a short way out of the difiiculty wouldbe to allow the lady to order her own dinner. Whenthey go on from the food question to the drink questionthey reach the summit Of conceited absurdity .

“I insist

on her having wine,” screams the doctor : “ if she don ’t,

she’ll die .

” Let her die,” says the husband : “I

’

m a

teetotaller,and would rather see her in her grave than

al low her to drink alcohol .”

Here you have the comedy inwhich Mokere delighted— the comedy Of lay ignorance and incapacity confrontingacademic error and prejudice : the layman being rightin theory and wrong in practice , the academician wrongin theory and right in practice . Unfortunately, thoughMr . Day Observes the confl ict very accurately, he doesnot understand it, and takes sides vehemently with thedoctor, even whilst faithfully dramatizing the dispute onthe l ines of a wrangle between tw o African witches asto the merits of

,their rival incantations . The doctor

prescribes his diet Of cutlet and wine (which , by the

way, would almost at once cure the patient ) quite superstitiously, as a charm . The vegetarian prescribes h i shominy porridge diet (which he i s quite right in supposing to be just as nutritious as a dead sheep) in thesame way . Both have irresistible facts on their side .The doctor sees that the woman is being killed by hermonstrous breakfasts : the husband knows , as everybodyknows , that as good work can be done , and as long livesl ived, on the diet o f the saints and the cranks as on thatOf the men about town . Probably he reads my articles ,and finds them as vigorous as those of my carnivorouscol leagues . The sensible solution is Obvious enough . Itis the doctor’s business to go to the patient and say, Mygood lady : do you wish to remain a vegetarian or not ?

3SI


I f you do, I must cut you down from your present allowance Of forage enough at every meal to feed six dragoonsand their horses for a day

,to something that you can

manage and relish . I f not, I can settle the diffi culty atonce by simply sending you back to cutlets

,in which your

experience wil l prevent you from overeating yourself .”

But alas ! doctors seldom do know their business . Thisparticular doctor and his client do not get beyond thePickwickian position ‘Crumpets is wholesome

,sir,

’

says the patient. ‘Crumpets is not wholesome, sir,’ says

the doctor, wery fierce .

” When the dramatist takes sidesin such a wrangle he is lost. His drama, beginning inexcellent real istic comedy

,and making fair way with

the audience on that plane , ends in pathos and folly .

The doctor, to rescue the lady from her cucumber pie,proposes an elopement. She consents . The husbandcomes back just in time to save her from ruin and disgrace . But he brings back with him hominy porridge,surfeit

,and death . Feeling the delicacy of the situation,

he considerately drops dead there and then . The doctor,wrong to the last, diagnoses heart disease ; but the audience quite understands that he perishes simply becausethere must be a happy ending to all plays, even anti-vegetarian ones .There is some unintentional comedy in the casting ofthe piece as well as in the drama itself. The fanatic hasa female accompl ice who is also a Spartan abstainer, andw ho should therefore, i f the doctor

’s views are to bemade good

,be on the verge o f starvation . This lady is

impersonated by Miss Kate Phill ips . Now Miss Phill ipsstands out in this inept generation as an exceptional lyaccompl ished and expert actress ; but the one thing she

cannot do is to look as i f she were dying of starva'

ion.

352


good-natured that they disarm criticism . But there isa point at which good-nature rouses malice ; and thatpoint is reached and overstepped in “The Tree Of Knowledge .

”It i s to me an unbearable play . Its staleness is

not to be described : the situations are expected and inevitable to such a degree Of Obviousness that even whenMr . Alexander remonstrates with Miss Jul ia Neilson inthe manner Of Bill Sikes with Nancy

,and all but stran

gles her in ful l view Of the audience, the effect is thato f a platitude . Not for a moment is it possible to see

anybody in the figures on the stage but Mr . Alexander,Mr . Vernon, Mr . Terry, Mr. Esmond, Miss Fay Davis ,Miss Neilson, and Miss Addison . There are five mortalacts ; and there is not a moment Of i llusion in them . Al lthat can be said in its favor is that Mr . H . B . Irving,fresh from the unnatural occupation o f tearing the ro

mantic trappings Off his father ’s favorite heroes in themagazines

,did contrive, in a cynical part o f the Old

Byron-Montague type , to throw a glamor of the genuineante-Shakespearean-Irving kind over a few of hisscenes, and scored the only personal success Of the evening ; and that Mr . George Sheldon, as the bad characterOf the vil lage, also left us with some sense o f havingmade a new acquaintance . But the rest was nothing buta new jug o f hot water on very Old tea leaves . Actingunder such circumstances is not possible . Mr. Esmondwent back to the Old business

,brought in by Mr . Hare

in the ’sixties , of the young man made up as an Old one .

The make-up seemed to me as unreal as the part ; andI venture to suggest to Mr . Esmond that i f he keepson doing this sort Of th ing he Will find some day, thatthe pretence has become a real ity , and will regret that hewasted hi s prime onsham caducity when there were young

354


parts going. Mr . Alexander, having a great deal to doand no discoverable scrap o f character in his part , des

perately b urlesqued his own mannerisms : a policy inwhich he was outdone by Miss Julia Neilson, w ho , as asecond Mrs . Tanqueray

—a sort of person whom Mr .Carton understands less , if possible, than Mr . Pinero,and whom Miss Neilson does not understand at al lgave us an assortment Of all the best known passages inmodern acting

, not excepting her own, and including, forthe first time , Miss Achurch

’

s frozen stare from the lastact of A Doll ’s House .” I do not blame either Mr .Alexander or Miss Nei lson : they had to fill in their partssomehow ; but the spectacle was an extremely trying one

for all parties . Mr. Fred Terry was more fortunate .

After struggling manfully for many years with the fami ly propensity to act, he has of late succumbed to it, andnow bears up against Mr. Carton almost as cheerfullyas Miss Ellen Terry bears up against Sh akespeare . MissFay Davis

,Mr . Vernon , and Miss Carlotta Addison , hav

ing nothing to do but illustrate the author’s amiabil ity,

did it with al l possible amenity and expertness : indeed ,but for the soothing effect Of Miss Davis ’s charm

,I

should have gone out at the end of the fourth act andpubl icly slain mysel f as a protest against so insufferablean entertainment.I should perhaps state my objections to The Treeof Knowledge” more clearly and precisely ; but how canI , with my mind unhinged by sitting out those five act s ?

My feelings towards Mr . Carton’s plays is generallyalmost reprehensibly indulgent ; for his humor is excellent ; his imagination is genial and Of the true storytell ingbrand ; he is apt and clear as a man of letters ; and hissympathies are kindly and free from al l affectation and

355


snobbery . But he seems to have no dramatic conscience,

no respect for the realities of l ife, and, except in hishumor, no originality whatever . The quantity of verybad early Dickens , of the Cheeryble-Linkinwater sort,which he pours out , i s beyond endurance . One shouldbegin where Dickens left off , not where he started . Allthis throwing back to Pickwick, and to the theatre Of

Byron and Robertson, for some sort of fanciful decorationfor a hackneyed plot, is bad enough when there is atleast some quaint pretence o f character, l ike that of theOld bookseller in “Liberty Hall . But when there is nosuch pretence ; when the thing is spun out to five acts ;and when the fifth act consists largely o f the novice’sblunder of making one Of the characters describe whatpassed in the fourth, then even the most patient criticcannot repress a groan .

By the way, if Mr . Alexander is going to make a spe

cialty Of plays, lasting from three to four hours, mayI suggest that he should get his upholstery and curtainsdyed green

, or some more restful color than the presentcrimson ? I believe my irresistible impulse to rush at “TheTree of Knowledge” and gore and trample it is chieflydue to the effect of all that red drapery onme.

356


for the briefest instant. Truly the secret Of wisdom isto become as a little child again . But

‘

Our art of loving authors will not learn the lesson . They cannot understandthat when a great genius lays hands onaform of artand fascinates al l who understand its language with it

,

he makes it say all that it can say,’

and leaves it exhausted .

When Bach has got the last word out o f the fugue ,Mozart out Of the Opera, Beethoven out of the symphony,Wagner out o f the symphonic drama, their enrapturedadmirers exclaim :

“Our masters have shown us the way :

let us compose some more fugues , operas, symphonies andBayreuth dramas .” Through j ust the same error themen who have turned dramatists on the frivolous groundOf their love for the theatre have plagued a weary worldwith Shakespearean dramas in five acts and in blankverse, with artificial comedies after Congreve and Sheridan, and with the romantic goody-goody fiction whichwas squeezed dry by a hundred strong hands in the firsthal f Of this century . It is only when we are dissatisfiedwith existing masterpieces that we create new ones : i fwe merely worship them , we only try to repeat the ex

ploit Of their creator by picking out the tidbits and stringing them together

,in some feeble fashion Of our own,

into a “new and original” botching o f what our master

left a good and finished job. We are encouraged in our

folly by the need Of the multitude for 1ntermediaries be

tween its childishness and the maturity o f the mighty meno f art, and also by the fact that art fecundated by itsel fgains a certain lapdog refinement, very acceptable tolovers Of lapdogs . The Incas o f Peru cultivated theirroyal race in this way

,each Inca marrying his sister .

The result was thatan average Inca was worth about asmuch as an average fashionable drama bred carefully

358


from the last pair of fashionable dramas , themselves bredin the same way

,with perhaps a cross Of novel . But vital

art work comes always from a cross between art and l i feart be ing Of one sex only, and quite sterile by itself .Such a cross is always possible ; for though the artistmay not have the capacity to bring his art into contactwith the higher l i fe of his time , fermenting in its rel igion ,its philosophy

,its science , and its statesmanship (perhaps ,

indeed,there may not be any statesmanship going ) , he

can at least bring it into contact with the obvious li fe andcommon passions of the streets . This is what has happened in the case of the Ch inatown play. The dramatist,compelled by the nature o f his enterprise to turn his backon the fashionable models for “brilliantly cast plays, andto go in search Of documents and facts in order to put asl ice of Californian li fe on the stage with crude realism ,

instantly wakes the theatre up with a piece wh ich hassome reality in it, though its mother is the cheapest andmost conventional of the daughters o f art, and its fatherthe lowest and darkest stratum of Americanized yellowcivilization . The phenomenon is a very old one . Whenart becomes effete, is is real ism that comes to the rescue .

In the same way, when ladies and gentlemen becomeeff ete, prostitutes become prime ministers ; mobs makerevolutions ; and matters are readjusted by men w ho donot know their own grandfathers .This moral of the advent Of the Ch inatown play isbrought out strikingly by the contrast between the rivalversions at the Lyric and . at the Globe . The Lyric vers ion , entitled

“The Cat and the Cherub,and claiming to

be the original (a claim which is apparently not contradicted ) , i s much the more academic Of the tw o . It is aformal play, with comparatively pretentious acting parts ,

359


and the local color blended into the dramatic businessin the most approved literary manner : the whole endingwith a complicated death struggle, in which the victimis strangled with his ownpigt ail, and performs an elaborate stage fall . In the Globe version there is comparativelyno art at all : we see the affair as w e see a street row ,

with al l the incidents Of the Ch inatown slum goingon independently— vulgar, busy, incongruous , irrelevant,indifferent, j ust as w e see them in a London slum whilstthe policeman is adj usting some tragedy at the corner .

Placed between an academic play and a vulgar play, thehigh-class London critic cannot hesitate . He waves theGlobe aside with scorn and takes the Lyric to his bosom .

It seems to me that the popular verdict must go theother way. It is Of course eminently possible that peoplemay not care to pay West End theatre prices for a veryshort entertainment which, at best, would make an excellent side show at Earl ’s Court. But i f they choose eitherway, they will probably like the crude, coarse, curious ,vivid

,and once or twice even thrilling hotch-potch at the

Globe, better than the more sedate and academic dramaat the Lyric . A good deal wil l depend onwhich they seefirst. Nine-tenths of the charm Of Chinatown lies in itsnovelty ; and a comparison o f the Opinions of those who

saw the tw o plays in the order of their production, andthose who

,like mysel f, saw the Globe play first, wi ll

prove,I th ink

,that the first experience very heavily dis

counts the second .

Up to a late hour onMonday night I persuaded myselfthat I would hasten from the Globe to Her Majesty’s , anddo my stern duty by “Katharine and Petruchio . Butwhen it came to the point I sacrificed duty to personal considerations .

“The Taming of the Shrew” is a remarkable

a36o

SHAKESPEARE AND MR. BARRIE

The Tempest. Performance by the ElizabethanS tage Society at the Mansion H ouse, 5 November,

}897 .

The Little Minis ter : a play 1n four acts. By J. M.

Barrie, founded on his novel of that name. Hay

market Theatre, 6 November, 1897.

T WAS a curious experience to see The Tempestone night and “The Little Minister the next . Ishould like to have taken Shakespeare to the Hay

market play . H ow well he would have recognized it !For he also once had to take a popular novel ; makea shallow, unnatural , indulgent, pleasant, popular dramao f it ; and hand it to the theatre with no hint Of his feelings except the significant title “As You Like It .” Andwe have not even the wit to feel the snub , but go oncomplacently talking of the manufacture Of Rosal inds andOrlandos (a sort Of thing that ought really to be donein a jam factory) as

“del ineation Of characte r” and thelike . One feels Shakespeare’s position most strongly inthe plays written after he had outgrown his interest inthe art Of acting and given up the idea of educating thepubl ic . In “Hamlet he is quite enthusiastic aboutnaturalness in the business of the stage, and makes Hamlet hold forth about it quite Wagnerianly : in

“Cymbe

line and “The Tempest” he troubles himself so littleabout it that he actually writes down the exasperatingclownish interruptions he once denounced ; brings on thegod in the car ; and, having indulged the public in matters which he no longer set any store by, took it out ofthem in poetry.

362


The poetry Of The Tempest i s so maglcal that itwould make the scenery Of a modern theatre ridiculous .The methods of the Elizabethan Stage Society ( I do notcommit mysel f to their identity with those Of the Elizabethan stage ) leave to the poet the work of conj uringup the isle “ful l Of noises , sounds and sweet airs .

” AndI do not see how this plan can be beaten . I f Sir HenryIrving were to put the play onat the Lyceum next season

(why not, by the what could he do but multiplythe expenditure enormously and spoil the illusion ? Hewould give us the screaming violin instead Of the harmonions viol ;

“characteristic” music scored for wood-w indand percussionby Mr . German instead Of Mr. Dohnetsch ’spipe and tabor ; an expensive and absurd stage ship ;and some windless

,airless

,changeless , soundless , electric

lit, wooden-floored mockeries Of the haunts of Ariel .

They would cost more ; but'

w ould they be an improvementon the Mansion House arrangement ? Mr. Poel saysfrankly,

“See that singers’ gallery up there ! Well , letspretend that it ’s the ship .

” We agree ; and the th ing isdone . But how could we agree to such a pretence with astage ship ? Before it w e should say,

“Take that thingaway : i f our imagi nation is to create a ship , i t must not becontradicted by someth ing that apes a ship so vilely as tofil l us with denial and repudiation Of its imposture . Thesinging gal lery makes no attempt to impose on us : i tdi sarms criticism by unaffected submission to the factsof the case , and throws itsel f honestly onour fancy, withinstant success . In the same way a rag doll is fondlynursed by a child who can only stare at a waxen simulacrum Of infancy. A

'

superstitious person left to himsel fwill see

“

a ghost in every ray o f moonl ight on the walland every Old coat hanging on a nail ; but make up a

363


real ly careful, elaborate, plausible, picturesque, bloodcurdling ghost for him, and h is cunning grin will proclaim that he sees through it at a glance . The reason is,not that a man can always imagine things more v ividlythan art can present them to him, but that it takes analtogether extraordinary degree Of art to compete withthe pictures which the imagination makes when it is stimulated by such potent forces as the maternal instinct ,superstitious aw e, or the poetry of Shakespeare. Thedialogue between Gonzalo and that “bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog

” the boatswain, would turn theHouse Of Lords into a ship : in less than ten words“What care these roarers for the name of king ?”—you

see the white horses and the billowing green mountainsplaying football with crown and purple . But the El izabethan method would not do for a play like “The WhiteHeather,

” excellent as it is o f its kind . I f Mr. Poel, onthe strength of the ‘Drury Lane dialogue, were to leaveus to imagine the singers’ gallery to be the bicycling ringin Battersea Park

,or Boulter’s Lock, w e should flatly

decline to imagine anyth ing .at all . It requires the nicestj udgment to know exactly how much help the imaginationwants . There is no general rule, not even for any part icular author . You can do best without scenery in

“TheTempest” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, becausethe best scenery you can get will only destroy the i llusioncreated by the poetry ; but it does not at all follow thatscenery wi ll not improve a representation Of “Othello .

”

Maeterl inck’s plays,requiring a mystical inscenation in

the style Of Fernand Knopf, would be nearly as muchspoiled by El izabethan treatment as by Drury Lane treatment. Modern melodrama is so dependent on the mostrealistic scenery that a

'

representation would suffer far

364


looked after the music ; and the costumes were worthyof the reputation which the Society has made for itselfin this particular. Ariel , armless and winged in his firstincarnation, was not exactly a tricksy sprite ; for as thewing arrangement acted as a strait waistcoat, he had tobe content with the effect he made as a l iving picture .

This disabi lity onhis part was characteristic Of the wholeperformance, which had to be taken in a somewhat lowkey and slow tempo, with a minimum Of movement. I fany attempt

'

had been made at the impetuosity and liveliness for which the English experts Of the sixteenthcentury were famous throughout Europe, it would havenot only failed, but prevented the performers from attaining what they did attain, very creditably, by a more modest ambition .

To our host the Lord Mayor I take Off my hat. WhenI think Of the guzzl ing horrors I have seen in that room,

and the insuff erable oratory that has passed throughmy head from ear to ear on its way to the second pillaron the right Of the door (which has the advantage Of

being stone deaf) , I hai l with sincere gratitude the firsttenant of the Mansion House who has bidden me to anentertainment worthy Of the first magistrate o f a greatcity, instead Of handing me over to an army Of waitersto be dealt with as one whose god i s his belly.

”

“The Little Minister” is a much happier play than TheTempest .” Mr. Barrie has no impulse to throw hisadaptation Of a popular novel at the public head with asarcastic title , because he has written the novel himself,and thoroughly enjoys it . Mr. Barrie is a born storyteller ; and he sees no further than his stories—conceivesany discrepancy between them and the world as a shortcoming On the world ’s part, and is only too happy to be

366


able to rearrange matters in a pleasanter way. The popular stage, which was a prison to Shakespeare

’

s genius ,is a playground to Mr. Barrie ’s . At all events he doesthe thing as i f he liked it, and does it very well . He hasapparently no eye for human character ; but he has a keensense Of human qualities , and he produces highly popularassortments Of them . He cheerfully assumes, as thepubl ic wish him to assume, that one endearing qualityimplies all endearing qual ities

,and one repulsive quality

all repulsive qual ities : the exceptions being comic characters, who are permitted to have

“weaknesses ,”or stern

and terrible souls who are at once understood to be sa

ving up some enormous sentimentality for the end Of thelast act but one . Now if there is one lesson that real li feteaches us more insistently than another, i t i s that w emust not infer one qual ity from another, or even rely onthe constancy o f ascertained qual ities under al l circumstances . It is not only that a brave and good-humoredman may be vain and fond Of money ; a lovable womangreedy, sensual and mendacious ; a saint vindictive ; anda thief kindly ; but these very terms are made untrustworthy by the facts that the man who is brave enough toventure on personal combat with a priz efighter or a tigermay be abj ectly afraid Of ghosts, mice, women, a dentist

’s'

forceps , public opinion, cholera epidemics, and a dozenother things that many timorous mortals face resignedlyenough ; the man who is stingy to miserliness with coin,and is the despair o f waiters and cabmen, gives thousands

(by cheque ) to publ ic institutions ; the man who eatsoysters by the hundred and legs Of mutton by the dozenfor wagers , is in many matters temperate, moderate, andeven abstemious ; and men and women alike, though theybehave with the strictest conventional propriety when

367


tempted by advances from people whom they do not happen to l ike

,are by no means so austere with people whom

they do like . In romance, al l these“inconsistencies” are

corrected by replacing human nature by conventional assortments Of qual ities . When Shakespeare obj ected tothis regulation , and wrote

“All ’s Well” in defiance Of it ,his play was not acted . When he succumbed

,and gave

us the required assortment “as we l ike it,” he was enor

mously successful . Mr Barrie has no scruples aboutcomplying. He is one with the publ ic in the matter

,and

makes a pretty character as a mil liner makes a prettybonnet, by

“matching” the materials . And why not, i feverybody is pleased ?

TO that question I reply by indignantly refusing, asa contemporary Of Master-Builder Solness, to be done outo f my al lowance Of “salutary sel f-torture .

” People don ’tgo to the theatre to be pleased : there are a hundredcheaper, less troublesome, more eff ective pleasures thanan uncomfortable gal lery can Off er . We are led thereby our appetite for drama, which is no more to he sat

isfied by sweetmeats than our appetite for dinner is to besatisfied with meringues and raspberry vinegar . One

l ikes something sol id ; and that, I suppose, is why heroesand heroines with assorted qualities are only endurablewhen the author has sufficient tact and comic force tokeep up an aff ectionate undercurrent Of fun at their expense and his own. That was how Shakespeare pul ledhis amiable fictions through ; that is how Mr . Carton doesit ; that is how Mr. Barrie does it . Dickens , with hisfundamental seriousness and social conscience always atwar with his romantic instincts and ideal ism, and evenwith his unconquerable sense Of humor, made desperateefforts to take his assorted heroines quite seriously by

368


a snuff-box , a set Of grease paints, and a part not youngerthan sixty-five to make him perfectly happy . There wasMr . Grundy’s “Sowing the Wind, for instance : Mr .Maude was never more pleased with himself than when,after spending the afternoon in pencill ing impossiblewrinkles al l over his face, he was crustily taking snuff asthe Old man in that play. The spectacle used to exasperateme to such a degree that nothing restrained me from hurling the nearest opera-glass at those wrinkles but the fearthat, as I am unfortunately an incorrigi bly bad shot, Imight lay Miss Emery low , or maim Mr . Brandon Thomasfor li fe . I do declare that Of all infuriating absurditiesthat human perversity has evolved, this painted-on

“character-acting is the only one that entirely justifies manslaughter . It was not that Mr . Cyri l Maude did it badly ;on the contrary, he did it very cleverly indeed : it wasthat he ought to have been doing something else . Theplague Of the stage at present is the intolerable stereotyping Of the lover : he is always the same sort Of youngman, with the same cast Of features , the same crease downhis new t rousers , the same careful manners , the same airof behaving and dressing like a gentleman for the firsttime in his li fe and being overcome with the novelty andimportance Of it . Mr . Maude was j ust the man to breakthis Oppressive fashion ; and instead Of doing it, he amusedhimsel f with snuff , and crustiness , and wrinkles as aforesaid, perhaps for the sake of the novelty which genti l itycould not Offer him . As the l ittle minister he at last playswithout disguise

,and with complete success . He is

naturally shy at showing h imself to the public for thefirst time ; but the shyness becomes him in the part ; andI dare say he will run Mr. Forbes Robertson hard forthe rest of the season as a much-admired man . Miss

37°


Winifred Emery,as Babby, has a rare time of it . She

plays with the part l ike a child, and amuses herself andthe audience unboundedly . Her sudden assumption Of

Red-Robe dignity for a few minutes in the fourth actconstitutes what I think may be described safely as theworst bit of acting the world has yet seen from a performer Of equal reputation, considering that it is supposedto represent the conduct Of a girl j ust out Of the school

room ; but she soon relapses into an abandonment to funcompared to which Miss Rehan

’

s most reckless attacks o fthat nature are sedate . Mr . Kinghorne is , I think, thebest Of the elders ; but Mr . BrandonThomas and Mrs .Brooke are in great force . There was a good deal Ofcuriosity among the women in the audience to see Mr .Barrie , because Of his evident belief that he was showinga deep insight into feminine character by representingBabby as a woman whose deepest instinct was to find aman for her master . At the end, when her husband announced his intention Of caning her i f she deserved it,she flung her arms round his neck and exclaimed ecstat

ically that he was the man for her . The inference that ,with such an experience Of the sex , Mr . Barrie

’s personality must be little short of godlike , led to a voci ferous callfor him when the curtain fell . In response , Mr . Harrison appeared, and got as far as

“Mr . Barrie is far toomodest a man when he w as interrupted by a wi ldshriek o f laughter . I do not doubt that many amiableladies may from time to time be afflicted with the fancythat there is something voluptuous in getting thrashedby a man . In the classes where the majority of marriedwomen get that fancy grafted with excessive liberality,i t is not so persistent as Mr . Barrie might think . I seriously suggest to him that the samples of hi s notion Of

37 I


womanl iness given by Babby are nothing but sillytravesties Of that desire to find an entirely trustworthyleader which is common to men and women.

Sir A . C. Mackenzie ’s overture was drowned by theconversation, which was energetically led by the composerand Sir George Lewis . But I caught some scraps Of refreshingly workmanlike polyphony ; and the melodrameat the beginning of the garden scene was charming.

ON PLEASURE BENT

20November, 1897.

P To a certain point, I .have never flinched frommartyrdom .

’

By far the heaviest demand evermade upon me by the publ ic weal is that which

nearly three years ago devoted my nights to the theatresand my days to writing about them . If I had known howexceedingly trying the experience would be, I am notsure that I should not have seen the public weal furtherbefore making th i s supreme sacrifice to it . But I hadbeen so seldom to the theatre in the previous years thatI did not realize its horrors . I firmly believe that thetrials upon which I then entered have‘ injured my brain .

At all events matters reached a crisis after the criticalactivities Of last week . I felt that I must have a realexperience of some kind, under conditions, especial ly asregards fresh air, as unl ike those Of the stalls as possible .

After some consideration it occurred to me that i f I wentinto the country, selected a dangerous hill , and rode down

372

Dramat ic Opinions and Essayscommercial transaction . Thereby he made it impossiblefor me to mention his name without black ingratitude ; forI know no more effectual way of ruining a man in th iscountry than by making publ ic the smallest propensityon his part to adopt a benevolent attitude towards necessitous strangers . Here the West End manager wi ll perhaps whisper reproachfully,

“Wel l ; and do I ever make

you pay for your stall ?”TO which I cannot but reply

,

Is that also due to the sympathy my voice awakens inyou when it is raised every Saturday ? ” I trust I am notungrateful for my invitations ; but to expect me to feeltowards the manager who lacerates my nerves

,enfeebles

my mind, and destroys my character, as I did towardsthe physician who healed my body, refreshed my soul ,and flattered my vocal accomplishments when I was nomore to him than an untimely stranger with an unheardOf black eye , is to dethrone j ustice and repudiate salvation .

Besides,he said it was a mercy I was not killed . Would

any manager have been Of that Opinion ?Perhaps the most delightful thing about thi s village

w as that its sense Of the relative importance Of thingswas so rightly adjusted that it had no theatrical gossip ;for this doctor actual ly did not know w ho I was. Witha cynicism for which his charity afterwards made meblush

,I sought to reassure him as to the pecuniary com

petence Of his muddy, tOrn, ensanguined and facial lyspoiled visitor by saying

“My name is G . B . S . , as whoshould say

“My name is Ceci l Rhodes , or Henry Irv ing,or Will iam Of Germany . Without turning a hair, hesweetly humored my egotistic garrul ity by replying, inperfect lightness Of heart

,

“Mine ’s F w hat are you

Breathing at last an atmosphere in which it mattered so

l ittle who and what G . B . S . was , that nobody knew either

374


one Or the other, I almost sobbed with relief whilst hethreaded his needle with a nice white horsehair, tactful lypretending to l isten to my evas ive murmur that I was a“sort O f writer,

” an explanation meant to convey to himthat I earned a blameless living by inscribing names inletters Of gold over shop windows and on perforated wirebl inds . To have brought the taint Of my factitious l ittlevogue into the unperverted consciousness o f his benevolent and sensible li fe would have been the act of aserpent .

On the whole, the success Of my experiment left nothingto be desired ; and I recommend it confidently for imitation . My nerves completely recovered their tone and mytemper its natural sweetness . I have been peaceful

,happy

and affectionate ever since , to a degree wh ich amazes myassociates . It i s true that my appearance leaves something to be desired ; but I believe that when my eye becomes again visible , the softness Oi its expression willmore than compensate for the surrounding devastation .

However, a man is something more than an omelette

and no extremity Of battery can tame my spirit to thepoint o f submitting to the Sophistry by which Mr . Beerbohm Tree has attempted to shift the guilt Of “Katharineand Petruchio” from h is shoulders and Garrick ’

s to thoseOf Shakespeare . I have never hesitated to give our immortal Wi l liam as much Of what he deserves as is possible considering how far his enormities transcend mypowers Of invective ; but even Wil l iam is entitled to fairplay . Mr . Tree contends that as Shakespeare wrote thescenes which Garrick tore away from their context , theyform a genuine Shakespearean play ; and he outdareseven this audacity by further contending that since theplay was performed for the entertainment Of Christopher

375


Sly the tinker, the more it is debauched the more appropriate it is . This line Of argument is so breath-bereaving that I can but gasp out an inquiry as to whatMr. Tree understands by the one really eloquent andheartfelt line uttered by Sly °

’Tis a very excellent pieceOf work : would ’twere done !”

This stroke, to which the whole Sly interlude is but asthe handle to the dagger, appears to me to reduce Mr .Tree’s identification Of the tastes Of his audiences at HerMajesty ’s with those Of a drunken tinker to a conditiondistinctly inferior to that Of my left eye at present . Theother argument is more seriously meant, and may evenimpose upon the simpl icity Of the Cockney playgoer . Letus test its principle by vary1ng its appl ication . Certainanti-Christian propagandists , both here and in America ,have extracted from the Bible all those passages whichare unsuited for

'

family reading, and have presented astring Of them to the publ ic as a representative sampleOf Holy Writ. Some Of our orthodox writers, thoughintensely indignant at this controversial ruse

,have never

theless not scrupled to do virtually the same thing withthe Koran. Will Mr . Tree claim for these col lections thefull authority

,dignity, and inspiration Of the authors from

whom they are culled ? If not, how does he distinguishGarrick

’

s procedure from theirs ? Garrick took from aplay Of Shakespeare ’s al l the passages which served hisbaser purpose, and suppressed the rest. Had his Obj ectbeen to discredit Shakespeare in the honest bel ief thatShakespearolatry was a damnable error, we might haverespected “Katharine and Petruchio” even whilst deploring it. But he hadno such conviction : in fact, he was aprofessed Shakespearolater, and no doubt a sincere one,as far as his wretched powers of appreciation went. He


mature distaste or indiff erence . But I may reasonablyassume—though I admit that the assumption is unusualand indeed unprecedented— that Shakespeare ’s plays areproduced for the satisfaction Of those who l ike Shakespeare

,and not as a tedious rite to celebrate the reputa

tion o f the author and enhance that o f the actor . Therefore I hope Mr. Tree, in such cutting Of

“Jul ius Caesar”

as the l imits Of time may force upon him,wil l careful ly

retain al l the passages which he disl ikes and cut out thosewhich seem to

.

him sufficiently popular to meet the viewsof Christopher S ly . He will not, in any case, producean acting version as good as Mr . Forbes Robertson’s“Hamlet,

” because Mr . Forbes Robertson seems to havel iked “Hamlet” ; nor as good as Mr . George Alexander

’s“As You Like It

,

” because Mr . Alexander apparentlyconsiders Shakespeare as good a j udge Of a play as himsel f ; but we shal l at least escape a positively anti-Shakespearean

“Julius Caesar .” I f Mr . Tree had suffered asmuch as I have from seeing Shakespeare butchered tomake a cockney ’s hol iday

,he would sympathize with my

nervousness on the subj ect .As I write— or rather as I dictate—comes the remarkable news that the London managers have presented theVice-Chamberlain with 500 ounces Of si lver. One cannotbut be refreshed by the frank publ icity o f the proceeding.

When the bui lders in my parish proffer ounces Of si lverto the sanitary inspector

,they do so by stealth , and blush

to find it fame . But the Vice-Chamberlain , it appears ,may take presents from those over whom he is set as aninspector and judge without a breath Of scandal .

‘

Itseems to me

,however

,that the transaction involves a

grave inj ustice to Mr . Redford . Why is he to havenothing ? A well-known Irish landlord once replied to

378


a

’

threatening letter by saying, I f you expect to intim

idate me by shooting my agent, you will be disappointed .

”

One can imagine Mr. Redford saying to the managersin a similar spirit,

“If you expect to bribe me by present

ing'

500 ounces Of silver to my vice-principal , you wil l bedisappo inted .

” I do not suppose that Sir Spencer Pon

sonby-Fane has dreamt of giving any serious thought to

this aspect o f what I shal l permit myself to describe asa ludicrously improper proceeding ; for the Censorial

functions o f his department will not bear serious thought.His action is certainly according to precedent. Sir “HenryHerbert, who, as Master of the Revels to Charles I . , didmuch to establish the traditions Of the Censorship, hasleft us his grateful testimony to the civility o f a contemporary actor-manager w ho tactful ly presented hiswife with a handsome pair Of gloves . Stil l , that actormanager did not invite the Press to report the speech hemade on the occasion, nor did he bring a large publ icdeputation Of his brother managers with him . I suggest

that his example in this respect should be followed infuture rather than that Of Tuesday last . I shall be told,no doubt, that Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane has nothingto do with the l icensing o f plays . And I shal l immediatelyretort,

“What then have the London managers to do withSir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane

BREATH FROM THE SPANISHMAIN

A Man’

s Shadow . Adapted from the French'

play“Roger la H onte

”by Robert Buchanan. Revival.

H er Maj esty’s Theatre. 27 November, 1897.

Admiral Guinea: a play in four acts. By R L.

S tevenson and W. E . H enley. H ones ty ; 0 CottageFlow er : inone act . By Margaret Young. The New

Century Theatre. Avenue Theatre. 29 November,1897.

T IS not in human nature to regard Her Maj esty’sTheatre as the proper place for such a police-courtdrama as “A Man’s Shadow . Still , i t i s not a bad

bit Of work of its kind ; and it would be a good deal better i f it were played as it ought to be with tw o actorsinstead of one in the parts Of Lucien Laroque and LuverSan. Of course Mr . Tree, fol lowing the precedent Of“The Lyons Mai l

,

” doubles the twain . Equal ly Of course,this expedient completely destroys the illusion , whichrequires that tw o different men should rememble one an

other so strongly as to be practically indistinguishableexcept on tolerably close scrutiny ; whilst Mr . Tree

’

sreputation as a master Of the art Of disguising himselfrequires that he shal l astonish the audience by the extravagant dissimilarity Of the two figures he alt ernatelypresents . NO human being could

,under any conceivable

circumstances , mistake his Laroque for his Luversan; andI have no doubt that Mr . Tree wil l take this as the highestcompl iment I could possibly pay him for this class o f

work . Nevertheless, I have no hesitation in saying thati f the real difficulty—one compared to which mere disguise is ch ild ’s play—were faced and vanquished, the

380

Dramat ic Opinions and EssaysBy the way, since Mr. Tree is fortunate enough to

have his band made so much Of as it is by Mr . RaymondRoze , he would, I think, find it economical to lavish afew

“extra.

gentlemen” (or ladies ) on the orchestra, eveni f they had to be deducted from his stage crowd . Tw o

or three additional strings would make al l the differencein such works as Mendelssohn ’s “Ruy Blas overture .

Considering the lustre Of the blazing galaxy of intellectwhich

'

has undertaken the adm inistration Of the New

Century Theatre,I real ly think the matinées Of that in

stitution might be better tempered to the endurance Ofthe public. It is true that one has the vindictive satisfaction Of seeing the committee men sharing the fatigue ofthe subscribers , and striving to outface their righteouspunishment with feeble grins at their own involuntaryyawns . But this is not precisely the sort of fun the NewCentury Theatre promised us . I ask Mr . Archer, Mr .

Massingham,Mr . Sutro , and Miss Robins , what the

I beg Miss Robins’s pardon—what on earth they meanby putting on a long first piece in front Of an importantfour-act play for no other purpose, apparently, than todamage the effect Of that play, and overdrive a will ingaudience by

‘

keeping i t in the theatre from half-past twounti l a quarter to six . I f the first piece had been one ofsurpassing excel lence

, or in any way special ly germaneto the purposes Of the New Century Theatre, I shouldsti ll say that it had better have been reserved for anotheroccasion . But as it only needed a l ittle Obvious trimmingto be perfectly el igible for the evening bil l at any Of ourordinary commercial theatres, its inclusion must be condemned as the very wantonness Of bad management, unless there was some munificent subscriber to be propitiatedby it. Or was

‘ Miss Kate Rorke ’s appearance as the lodg

382


ing-house slavey the attraction ? I f so , Miss Rorke andthe committee have to share between them the responsibility Of a stupendous error Of j udgment . Miss Rorke iscongenital ly incapable Of reproducing in her own personany single touch

,national or idiosyncratic, Of Clorindar

Ann . She can industriously pronounce face as fice, mile

as mawl,and no as nah-00 ; but she cannot do it in a

London voice ; nor is her imaginative , idealistic, fastidious

sentiment even distantly related to the businesslike passions Of the cockney kitchen . Whatever parts she mayhave been miscast for before she won her proper placeon the stage , she had better now refer appl icants forthat sort Of work to Miss Louie Frecar or Miss CicelyRichards . It would give me great pleasure to see MissRorke again as Helena in “A Midsummer Night’sDream but I think I had almost rather be boiled al ivethan go a second time to see

“Honesty,

” which,on this

occasion , was most decidedly not the best policy for theNew Century Theatre .

Hardly anything gives a livel ier sense of the deadnessof the Engl ish stage in the eighties than the failure of

Stevenson and Mr . Henley to effect a lodgm ent on it .TO plead that they were no genuine dramatists is not tothe point : pray what were some of the i ll iterate bunglersand ignoramuses whose work was preferred to theirs ?

Ask any playgoer whether he remembers any Of the fashionable successes of that period as vividly as he remembers Deacon Brodie” ! I f he says yes, you wil l find thathe is either a simple l iar, or else no true playgoer, butmerely a critic, a fireman

,a policeman

,or some other

functionary w ho has to be paid to induce him to enter atheatre . Far be it from me to pretend that Henley andStevenson, in their Boy Buccaneer phase, took the stage

383


seriously—unless it were the stage of pasteboard scenesand characters, and tin lamps and slides . But even thatstage was in the eighties so much more artistic than thereal stage—so much more sanctified by the childish fanciesand dreams in which real dramatic art begins , that it wasj ust by writing for it, and not for the West End houses ,that Henley and Stevenson contrived to get ahead of theirtime .

“Admiral Guinea” is perhaps their most franklyboyish compound Of piracy and pasteboard, coming 0c

casionally very close to poetry and pasteboard, and written with prodigious literary vi rtuosity . Indeed, both o f

them had a l iterary power to which maturity could addnothing except prudence

,which in this style is the mother

o f dulness . Their boyishness comes out in their barbarous humor, their revell ing in blood and broadswords ,crime , dark lanterns , and del irious supernatural terrors :above all , in their recklessly irreligious love Of adventurefor its own sake . We see i t too in the unnatural drawingof the girl Arethusa

,though the womanl iness aimed at is

not altogether i ll divined in the abstract . The Admiralhimself is rank pasteboard ; but the cleverness with whichhe is cut out and colored, and h is unforgettable story ofhis last voyage and his wife ’s death , force us to overlookthe impossibilities in his anatomy

,and to pretend, for the

heightening o f our own enjoyment, that he not only moveson the authors ’ sl ides

,and speaks with their voices, but

l ives . Pew is more convincing ; for his qual ities are thosethat a man might have ; only, i f a real man had them , hewould end, not as a bl ind beggar, but as ruler of theQueen ’s Navee . This does not trouble the ordinary playgoer

,who

,simple creature ! accepts Pew ’s vil lainy as a

sufficient cause for his exceeding downness on his luck .

Students Of real life will not be so easily satisfied : they

384


of Lords , are useless, dangerous, and ought to beabolished.

The performance was a remarkably good one . Thestage manager should not have so far neglected the ancient counsel to “j ine his flats” as to leave a large gap inthe roof of the Admiral ’s house ; but there was nothingelse to complain of. Mr . Sidney Valentine had a rarechance as Pew . He proved unable to bear the extraor

dinary strain put by the authors on his capacity for rum ,

and frankly stopped after the first gal lon or two ; but inno other respect was he found wanting. Mr . Mollisonplayed the Admiral very carefully and methodical ly. Thepart was not seen by flashes o f l ightning ; but none of itwas lost . What man could do with the impossible KitFrench Mr. Loraine did ; and Miss Dolores Drummondwas well within her means as the landlady of the BenbowInn . The part Of Arethusa, pretty as it is, i s so romantical ly literary that Miss Cissie Loftus could show ‘usnothing about herself in it except what we already knownamely

,that she i s l ike nobody else on the stage or Off it,

and that her vocation is beyond all doubt.

HAMLET REVISITED

18 December, 1897.

UBLIC feeling has been much harrowed this weekby the accounts from America o f the 144 hours

’

bicycle race ; but what are the horrors o f such anexhibition compared to those of the hundred-nights runof Hamlet ! OnMonday last I went, in my private capacity, to witness the last lap but five o f the Lyceum trial Ofendurance . The performers had passed th rough the stageo f acute mania, and were for the most part s leep—walkingin a sort of dazed blank-verse dream . Mr . Barnes ravedo f some New England maiden named Aff ection Poo ; thesubtle distinctions made by Mrs . Patrick Cam pbel l between madness and sanity had blurred off into a placididiocy turned to favor and to prettiness ; Mr . ForbesRobertson, his lightness of heart al l gone, wandered intoanother play at the words “S leep ? No more !” which hedelivered as ,

“S leep no more .” Fortunately, before hecould add “Macbeth does murder sleep,

” he relapsed intoHamlet and saved the situation . And yet some o f thecompany seemed all the better for their unnatural exercise . The King w as in uproarious spirits ; and theGhost, a lways comfortable , was now positively pampered ,his indifference to the inconveniences of purgatory havingdeveloped into a bean-fed enjoyment of them . Fortinbras,as I j udged

,had sought consolation in rel igion : he was

anxious concerning Hamlet’s eternal wel fare ; but hisgeneral health seemed excellent . A s Mr. Gould did notplay on the occasion o f my first visit, I could not comparehim with his former sel f ; but his condition was sufficientlygrave . His attitude was that o f a cast-away mariner w ho


has no longer hope enough to scan the horizon for a sail ;yet even in this extremity his unconquerable generosityof

. temperament had not deserted him . When his cuecame, he would j ump up and lend a hand with al l his Oldalacrity and resolution . Natural ly the players of theshorter parts had suffered least : Rosencrantz andGuildenstern were only beginning to enjoy themselves ; andBernardo (or was it Marcel lus ? ) was stil l eagerly working up his part to concert pitch . But there could be nomistake as to the general effect. Mr. Forbes Robertson’sexhausting part had been growing longer and heavier onhis hands ; whilst the support of the others had been falling off ; so that he was keeping up the charm o f the representation almost single-handed just when the torturingfatigue . and monotony of nightly repetition had made thetask most difficult . To the public, no doubt, the justification of the effort is its success . There was no act whichdid not contain at least one scene finely and movinglyplayed ; indeed some o f the troubled passages gained inverisimilitude by the tormented condition of the actor .

But “Hamlet” is a very long play ; and it only seems ashort one when the high-mettled comedy with which iti s interpenetrated from beginning to end leaps out withall the l ightness and spring of its wonderful loftiness oftemper . This was the secret of the del ighted surprisewith which the publ ic

,when the run began , found that

“Hamlet,” far from being a funereal ly classical bore , was

full of a celestial gaiety and fascination . It is this rarevein that gives out first when the exigencies o f theatricalcommerce force an

,

actor to abuse it . A sentimentalH amlet can go on for two years , or ten for the matter

o f that, without much essential depreciation of the performance ; but the actor who sounds Hamlet from the

388


doddering and speaking in a cracked voice : i f j uvenility,he swaggered and effervesced . With these accomplishments , eked out by a few rules of thumb as to wigs andface-painting, one deplorable step dance, and one sti llmore deplorable “combat,

” he “swal lowed” every partgiven to him in a couple Of hours , and regurgitated it inthe evening over the footlights , always in the same manner

,however finely the dramatist might have individ

ualised it . His infamous incompetence at last swept himfrom the reputable theatres into the barns and booths ;and it was then that he became canonised, in the imagination of a posterity that had never suffered from him, asthe incarnation Of the one qual ity in whi ch he was quitedamnably deficient : to wit, versatility . His great contributionto dramatic art was the knack of earning a livingfor fifty years on the stage without ever real ly acting, oreither knowing or caring for the difference between the“Comedy o f Errors” and “Box and Cox .

”

A moment’s consideration will show that the results Ofthe long-run system at its worst are more bearable thanthe horrors o f the past . Also, that even in point o f givingthe actor some chance of varying his work, the long-runsystem is superior

,since the modern actor may at all

events exhaust the possibilities o f his part before it exhausts him, whereas the stock actor, having barely timeto apply his bag o f tricks to his daily task , never varieshis treatment by a hair’s breadth from one hal f centuryto another . The best system , Of course , l ies between theseextremes . Take the case o f the great Ital ian actors whohave visited us , and whose acting is of an excellence appat ently quite beyond the reach o f our best Engl ish performers . We find them extremely chary Of playing everynight . They have a repertory containing plays whichcount as resting places for them . For example, Duse

90


relieves Magda with Mirandolina just as our ownShakespearean star actors used to rel ieve Richard the Thirdand Othello with Charles Surface and Don Felix . Buteven with this mitigation no actor can possibly play leading parts of the first order six nights a week all the yearround unless he underplays them , or routines them me

chanically in the Old stock manner, or faces a terriblerisk of disablement by paralysis , or, final ly, resorts toalcohol or morphia, with the usual penalties . What wewant in order to get the best work is a repertory theatrewith alternative casts . I f, for instance , we could have“Hamlet” running at the Lyceum with Sir Henry Irvingand Miss El len Terry on Thursdays and Saturdays , Mr .Forbes Robertson and Mrs . Patrick Campbell onWednes

days and Fridays , and the other tw o days devoted tocomedies in which al l four could occasionally appear

,with

such comedians as Mr . Charles Wyndham , Mr . WeedonGrossmith Mr . Bourchier, Mr . Cyril Maude , and Mr .Hawtrey, then we should have a theatre which we couldinvite serious people to attend without po sitively insultingthem . I am aware that the precise combination which I

have named is not altogether a probable one at present ;but there is no reason why we should not at least turnour faces in that direction . The actor-manager system ,

which has h itherto meant the star system carried to itsutmost po ssible extreme, has made the theatre so insuf

ferable that, now that its monopoly has been broken upby the rise o f the suburban theatres , there is a distinctweakening of the j ealous and shameless individualism o f

the last twenty years,and a movement towards combina

tion and co-operation .

By the way , i s it quite prudent to start a public cor

respondence on the Stage as a Profession ? Suppose someone were to tel l the truth about it !

39I

PEACE AND GOOD WILL TOMANAGERS

The Babes in the Wood. The Children’s GrandPantomime, by A rthur Sturgess and Arthur Collins.

Music by J . M. Glover. Theatre Royal, Drury Lane ,27 December, 1897 .

AM sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas in these articles . It is an indecent subj ect ; acruel , gluttonous subj ect ; a drunken , disorderly

subject ; a wasteful , disastrous subj ect ; a wicked , cadg

ing, lying, filthy, blasphemous , and demoralising’

subj ect .

Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nationby the shopkeepers and the press : on its own merits it

would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universalhatred ; and any one who looked back to it would beturned into a pi llar of greasy sausages . Yet , though it is

'

over now for a year, and I can go out without positivelyelbowing my way through groves of carcases , I amdragged back to i t, with my soul full of loathing, by thepantomime .

The pantomime ought to be a redeeming feature ofChristmas

,since it professedly aims at developing the

artistic possibi l ities of our Saturnalia . But its proiessions are l ike al l the other Christmas professions : whatthe pantomime actual ly does is to abuse the Christmastoleration Of dulness

,senselessness , vulgarity and ex

travagance to a“

degree utterly incredible by people whohave never been inside a theatre . The manager spendsfive hundred pounds to produce tw o penn ’orth of effect .

As a sh i lling’s worth i s needed to fill the gal lery, he hasto spend three thousand pounds for the

“gods ,” seven

392


o f the presentation of its incidents . The spectacularscenes exhibit Mr . Collins as a manager to whom a thousand pounds is as five shi l l ings . The dramatic scenesexhibit him as One to whom a crown-piece is as a mill ion .

If Mr. Dan Leno had asked for a hundred-guinea tunicto wear during a single walk across the stage

,no doubt

he would have got it, with a fifty-guinea hat and swordbelt to boot . I f he had asked for ten guineas ’ worth o f

the time of a competent dramatic humorist to provide himwith at least one l ine that might not have been piratedfrom the nearest Cheap Jack

,he would, I suspect, have

been asked whether he wished to make Drury Lane bankrupt for the benefit o f dramatic authors . I hope I maynever again have to endure anything more dismal ly futi le than the efforts o f Mr . Leno and Mr . Herbert Campbel l to start a passable j oke in the course of their stumbl ings and wanderings through barren acres o f gag onBoxing-night. Their attempt at a travesty of

“Hamlet”

reached a pitch o f abj ect resourcelessness which couldnot have been surpassed i f they really had been a coupleo f school children cal led on for a prize—day Shakespearean recitation without any previous warning. An imitation o f Mr . Forbes Robertson and Mrs . Patrick Campbell would have been cheap and Obvious enough ; but eventhis they were unequal to . Mr . Leno, fortunately forhimsel f, was inspired at the beginning o f the business tocal l “Hamlet” “Ham .

” Several o f the easily amusedlaughed at this ; and thereafter, whenever the travesty be

came so frightful ly insolvent in ideas as to make it almostimpossible to proceed . Mr . Leno said “Ham ,

” and savedthe situation . What will happen now is that Mr. Lenowil l hit on a new point Of the “Ham” order at, say, everysecond performance . As there are tw o performances a

394


day, he will have accumulated thirty wheezes , as hecalls them

,by the end of next month, besides being cut

down to strict l imits o f time . In February, then, his partwi l l be quite bearable— probably even very drol l—andMr . Col l ins wi l l thereby be confirmed in his belief thati f you engage an eccentric comedian of recognized gagging powers you need not take the trouble to write a partfor him . But would it not be wiser, under these circumstances

,to invite the critics on the last night of the pan

tom ime instead o f on the first ? Mr . Col l ins wi ll probably reply that by doing so he would lose the benefit Ofthe press notices , which, as a matter of Christmas custom , are not criticisms, but simply gratuitous advertisements given as a Christmas-box by the newspaper to themanager who advertises al l the year round . And I amsorry to say he will be quite right.It is piteous to see the wealth o f artistic effort whichis annual ly swamped in the morass Of purposeless wastefulness that constitutes a pantomime . At Drury Lanemany o f the costum es are extremely pretty, and some o fthem , notably those borrowed for the flower bal let fromone of Mr . Crane ’s best-known series o f designs

,rise

above mere theatrica l prettiness to the highest class ofdecorative art available for fantastic stage purposes . Unhappily

,every stroke that is at al l del icate, or rare

,or

precious is multipl ied, and repeated, and obtruded, usual ly On the l imbs o f some desolatingly incompetent youngwoman

,unti l its value is heavi ly discounted . Stil l , some

o f the scenes are worth looking at for five minutes , thoughnot for twenty . The orchestral score is very far abovethe general artistic level o f the pantomime . The instru

mental resources placed at the disposal of Mr . Gloverquite ungrudgingly as far as they consist o f brass—would

395


suffice for a combined Bach festival and Bayreuth GOt

terdammerung” performance. To hear a whole battery

of Bach trumpets, supported by a park o f trombones ,blasting the welkin with the exordium Of -Wagner’s Kaisermarsch ,

i s an ear-spl itting ecstasy not to be readilyforgotten ; but these mechanical effects are real ly cheaperthan the daintiness and wit of the vocal accompaniments,in which Mr . Glover shows a genuine individual andoriginal style in addition to his imposing practical knowledge of band business .I f I were Mr . Collins I should reduce the first fourscenes to one short one, and get some person with alittle imagination, some acquaintance with the story ofthe Babes in the Wood, and at least a rudimentary facultyfor amusing people, to write the dialogue for it. Ishould get Messrs . Leno and Campbell to double theparts of the robbers with those of the babes, and so

make the panorama scene tolerable. I should reduce thesecond part to the race-course scene

,which i s fairly

funny, with j ust one front scene, in which full scopemight be allowed for Mr . Leno ’s inspiration, and thefinal transformation . I should either cut the harlequinadeout, or, at the expense Of the firms it advertises, pay theaudience for looking at it ; or else I should take as muchtrouble with it as Mr . Tree took with “Chand d’Habits”

at Her Majesty’s . And I should fill up the evening withsome comparatively amusing play by Ibsen or Browning.

Finally, may I ask our magistrates on what groundthey permit the legislation against the employment o f

very young children as money makers for their familiesto be practically annulled in favor o f the pantomimes ?I f the experience, repeated twice a day for three months ,is good for the children, I suggest that there need be no

396


Of achieving a real superiority or going ignominiouslyunder in the class conflict.It is when we turn to Jul ius Caesar, the most splen

didly written pol itical melodrama we possess , that wereal ize the apparently immortal author of

“Hamlet” asa man , not for al l time , but for an age only, and that ,too , in al l sol idly wise and heroic aspects , the most despicable of al l the ages in our history . It is impossiblefor even the most j udicial ly-minded critic to look withouta revulsion of indignant contempt at this travestying o f

a great man as a sil ly braggart,whi lst the piti ful gang

o f mischief-makers who destroyed him are lauded asstatesmen and patriots . There is not a single sentenceuttered by Shakespeare ’s Jul ius Caesar that is , I wi llnot say worthy Of him , but even worthy of an averageTammany boss . B rutus is nothing but a familiar typeo f Engl ish suburbanpreacher : pol itical ly he would hardlyimpress the Thames Conservancy Board . Cassius is avehemently assertive nonentity . It is only when wecome to Antony

,unctuous voluptuary and

'

self-seekingsentimental demagogue

,that we find Shakespeare in his

depth ; and in his depth , o f course, he is superlative . Re

garded as a crafty stage job, the play is a triumph : rhetorie, claptrap, effective gushes o f emotion, al l the deviceso f the popular playwright

,are employed with a profusion

of power that almost breaks their backs . NO doubt thereare sl ips and slovenl inesses o f the kind that careful revisers el iminate ; but they count for so l ittle in the massof accompl ishment that it is safe to say that the dramatist

’

s art can be carried no further on that plane . I fGoethe

,who understood Caesar and the significance o f

his death— “the most senseless o f deeds” he cal led ithad treated the subject

,his conception of it would have

398


been as superior to Shakespeare ’s as St. John ’s Go spelis to the “Pol ice News” ; but his treatment could not havebeen more magnificently success ful . As far as a sonoritytlimagery

,wit

,humor , energy o f imagination

,power over

language, and a whimsical ly keen eye for idiosyncrasiescan make a dramatist, Shakespeare was the king of dramaatists . Unfortunately, a man may have them al l and yetconceive high affairs of state exactly as Simon Tappertitdid . In one o f the scenes in “Jul ius Caesar” a conceitedpoet bursts into the tent o f Brutus and Cassius , and exhorts them not to quarrel with one another . I f Shakespeare had been able to present his play to the ghost o fthe great Jul ius , he would probably have had much thesame reception . He certainly would have deserved it.When it was announced that Mr . Tree had resolvedto give special prominence to the character of Casar inhis acting version, the critics winked, and concludedsimply that the actor-manager was going to play Antonyand not Brutus . Therefore I had be tter say that Mr .Tree must stand acquitted of any belittlement of theparts which compete so strongly with his own. Beforegoing to Her Maj esty’s I was curious enough to blockout for mysel f a division Of the play into three acts andI found that Mr . Tree’s divis ion corresponded exactlywith mine . Mr . Waller ’s Opportunities as Brutus, andMr . McLeay

’

s as Cassius,are limited only by their own

abil ity to take advantage of them ; and Mr . Louis Calvertfig ures as boldly in the publ ic eye as he did in his ownproduction o f Antony and Cleopatra” last year at Manchester . Indeed, Mr . Calvert is the only member of thecompany w ho achieves an unequivocal success . The

preference expressed in the play by Caesar for fat menmay, perhaps , excuse Mr. Ca lvert for having again per

399


mitted himsel f to expand after his triumph reduction of

his girth for his last appearance in London . However ,he acted none the worse : in fact, nobody else acted so

skil ful ly or original ly . The others , more heavily burdened, did their best, quite in the spirit o f the man whohad never played the fiddle

,but had no doubt he could

if he tried . Without oratory,without style

,without

specialized vocal training, without any practice worthmentioning, they assaulted the play with cheerful sel fsufficiency, and gained great glory by the extent to which ,as a masterpiece of the playwright’s trade

,i t played itsel f .

Some smal l successes were not lacking. Caesar’s nosewas good : Calpurnia’s bust was worthy of her : in suchparts Garrick and Siddons could have achieved no more .

Miss Evelyn Millard ’s Roman matron in the style of

Richardson— Cato’s daughter as Clarissa—was an un

looked- for novelty ; but it cost a good dea l of valuabletime to get in the eighteenth century between the l ineso f the first B . 0. By operatic convention— the least appropriate o f al l conventions— the boy Lucius was played byMrs . Tree , who sang Sullivan

’s u ltra-nineteenth-century“Orpheus with his Lute ,

” modulations and al l , to a pizz icato accompaniment supposed to be played on a lyrewith eight open and unstopped strings

,a feat complexly

and absurdly impossible . Mr . Wal ler, as Brutus , failedin the first hal f o f the play . His intention clearly wasto represent Brutus as a man superior to fate and circumstance ; but the effect

‘he produced was one of insensibi l ity .

Nothing could have been more unfortunate ; for it isthrough the sensibil ity of Brutus that the audience haveto learn what they cannot learn from the phlegrnatic plucko f Casca or the narrow vindictiveness o f Cassius : that is ,the terrible momentousness

,the harrowing anxiety and

400


to hear the sixteen- foot pipes booming, or, failing them(as we often must, since so few actors are naturallyequipped with them ) , the ennobled tone, and the temposuddenly steadied with the maj esty of deeper purpose .

You have, too, those moments when the verse, insteado f opening up the depths o f sound, rises to its most bri ll iant clangor, and the lines ring like a thousand trumpets . I f we cannot have these effects

, or i f we can onlyhave genteel drawing- room arrangements o f them ,

wecannot have Shakespeare ; and that is what is mainly thematter at Her Majesty’s : there are neither trumpets norpedal pipes there . The conversat1on 1s metrical and emphatic in an elocutionary sort of way ; but it makes nodistinction between the arid prairies o f blank verse whichremind one of

“Henry VI . at its crudest,and the places

where the morass suddenly piles itsel f into a mightymountain . Cassius in the first act has a twaddl ing fortyline speech, base in its matter and mean in its measure,followed immediately by the magnificent torrent Ofrhetoric, the first burst of true Shakespearean music inthe play, beginning,

Why man, he doth bestride the narrow w orldLike a Colossus ; and w e pet ty men

Walk under h is huge legs, and peep aboutTo find ourselves dishonorable graves.

”

I failed to catch the sl ightest change o f elevation or re

inforcement o f feel ing when Mr. McLeay passed from

one to the other . His tone throughout was dry ; and itnever varied . By dint of energetic, incisive articulation ,he drove h is utterances harder home than the others ; butthe best l ines seemed to him no more than the worst

402


there were no heights and depths, no contrast o f blackthunder-cloud and flaming lightning flash , no stirs andsurprises . Yet he was not inferior in oratory to the rest .Mr . Waller certainly cannot be reproached with drynesso f tone and his del ivery of the speech in the forum w as

perhaps the best piece o f formal elocution we got ; buthe also kept at much the same level throughout , and didnot at any moment attain to anything that could be calledgrandeur. Mr . Tree , except for a conscientiously desperate eEort to cry havoc and let slip the dogs o f war in therobustious manner, with no better result than to al l butextinguish his voice , very sensibly left oratory out o f

the question, and tried conversational sincerity , whichanswered so well that his del ivery of

“This was the noblest Roman o f them al l” came OE excellently .

The real hero o f the revival i s Mr . Alma Tadema . Thescenery and stage coloring deserve everything that has

been said o f them . But the illusion is wasted by wanto f discipline and want of thought behind the scenes .Every carpenter seems to make it a point o f honor to set

the cloths swinging in a w ay that makes Rome reel andthe audience positively seasick . In Brutus ’s house thedoor is on the spectator ’s left : the knocks on i t comefrom the right . The Roman soldiers take the field eachman with his two j avelins neatly packed up l ike a fishingrod . After a battle , in which they are supposed to havemade the famous Roman charge , hurling these j avel insin and fol lowing them up sword in hand

,they come back

carrying the javelins stil l undisturbed in their rug- straps ,in perfect trim for a walk-out with the nursery-maids o fPhil ippi .

The same want of vigi lance appears in the acting version . For example , though the tribunes Flavius and

403


Marullus are replaced by two of the senators,the l ines

referring to them by name are not altered . But the oddest oversight is the retention in the tent scene o f theobvious confusion of the original version of the play

,in

which the death of Portia was announced to Brutus byMessala, with the second version , into which the quarrelscene was written to strengthen the fourth act. In thisversion Brutus, already in possession of the news , revealsit to Cass1us. The play has come down to us with thetwo alternative scenes strung together ; so that Brutus

’sreception Of Messala

’

s news , following his own revelat ion

'

o f i t to Cassius , is turned into a satire on Romanfortitude , the suggestion being that the secret of the calmwith which a noble Roman received the most terribletidings in public was that it had been carefully impartedto him in private beforehand . Mr. Tree has not noticedthis ; and the two scenes are gravely played one after theother at Her Majesty’s .

‘

This does not matter much to

our playgoers , w ho never venture to use their commonsense when Shakespeare is in question ; but it wastes time .

Mr . Tree may without hesitation cut out Pindarus andMessala

,and go straight on from the bow l o f wine to

Brutus ’s'

question about Phil ippi .The music composed for the occasion by Mr . RaymondRoze

,made me glad that I had already taken care to ac

knowledge the value Of Mr . Roze ’s services to Mr . Tree ;for this time he has missed the Roman vein rather badly.

To be a Frenchman was once no disqual ification for theantique

,because French musicians used to be brought up

on Gluck as Engl ish ones were brought up on Handel .But Mr . Roze composes as i f Gluck had been supplantedwholly in his curriculum by Gounod and Bizet . If that

‘

prelude to the third act were an attempt to emulate the

404


fault. (Will the Mining Journal please copy, as Mr .

Pinero reads no other paper during the current fortnight. )

MR . PINERO’S PAST

Charlotte Corday : a drama in four acts. Anonymous. Adelphi Theatre . 21 January, 1898.

Trelawny of the“Wells

”: an original comedietta in

four acts. By Arthur W. Pinero . Court Theatre.

20 January, 1898.

R . PINERO has not got over it yet . That fatalturning-point in life

,the fortieth birthday, sti ll

Oppresses him . In “The Princess and the Butterfly he unbosomed himsel f frankly, making his soul

’strouble the open theme of his play . But this was takenin such extremely bad part by mysel f and others (gnawedby the same sorrow ) that .he became shy on the subj ect,and

,I take it, began to cast about for some indirect means

o f returning to it . It seems to have occurred to him atlast that by simply showing on the stage the fashions offorty years ago, the crinol ine, the flounced skirt, the garibaldi

,the turban hat

,the cheni lle net, the horse-hair sofa,

the peg-top trouser, and the“weeper” whisker , the chord

o f memory could be mutely struck without wounding myvanity . The del icacy o f this mood inspires the wholeplay

,which has touched me more than anything else Mr.

Pinero has ever written .

But first let me get these old fashions—or rather thesemiddle-aged fashions : after al l , one is not Methusaleh

OE my mind . It is significant of the diEerence between

406


my temperament and Mr. Pinero’s , that when he, as al ittle boy, first heard Ever of thee I ’m fondly dreaming

,

”

he wept ; whereas, at the same tender age, I simply notedwith scorn the Obvious plagiarism from Cheer, Boys ,Cheer.”

To me the sixt ies waft ballads by Virginia Gabriel andairs from “

11Trovatore” ; but Mr . Pinero’s selection is

none the less right ; for Virginia Gabriel belonged to

Cavendish Square and not to Bagnigge Wells ; and“Il

Trovatore” is still al ive , biding its time to break out againwhen M . Jean de Reszke also takes to fondly dreaming.

The costumes at the Court Theatre are a mixture ofcaricature and realism . Miss Hilda Spong, whose goodlooks attain most happily to the 1860 ideal (Miss EllenTerry had not then been invented ) i s dressed exactly afterLeech’s broadest caricatures Of crinolined English maidenhood; whereas Miss Irene Vanbrugh clings to the finerauthority o f Millais ’ masterly illustrations to Trollope .

None o f the men are properly dressed : the lounge coat”

which we all wear unblushingly to-day as a jacket, withits corners SlOped away in front, and its length behindinvolving no friction with the seats o f our chairs , thenclung nervously to the traditions of the full coat, and waslonger, straighter, rectangular —cornerder and frankeras to the shoulders than Mr . Pinero has been able topersuade the tailors o f the Court Theatre to make it today . I imagine, too , that Cockney dialect has changeda goo d deal since then . Somewhere in the eighties

,Mr .

Andrew Tuer pointed out in the “Pall Mall Gazette” thatthe conventional representations in fiction Of London pronunciation had ceased to bear any recognisable relationto the actual speech of the coster and the flower-girl ; andMr . Anstey, in

“Punch, was the first author to give gen'407


eral literary currency to Mr . Tuer’s new phonetics . Thel ingo of Sam Weller had by that time passed away fromLondon, though suggestions of it may be heard even today no further OE than Hounslow . Sir Henry Irvingcan no longer be ridicu led, as he was in the seventies, forsubstituting pure vowel sounds for the customary colloquial diphthongs for the manin the street, without atal l aiming at the virtuosity Of our chief actor

, has himsel findependently introduced a novel series of pure vowels .Thus i has become aw , and ow ah. In spite of Sir Henry

,

0 has not been turned into a true vowel ; but it has becomea very marked ow , whilst the English a is changed to aflagrant i. There is, somewhere in the Old files o f “Al lthe Year Round” a Dickensian description of an il l iteratelady giving a reading. Had she been represented as saying,

“The scene tikes plice dahn in the Mawl En’

Rowd”

( takes place down in the Mile End Road ) Dickens wouldapparently not have understood the sentence, which noLondoner with ears can now mistake . On these grounds ,I challenge the pronunciation o f Avonia Bunn, in the person o f Miss Pattie Browne, as an anachronism . I feelsure that if Avonia had made so rhyme to thou in thesixties

, she would have been understood to have alludedto the feminine pig. On this point, however, my personalauthority is not conclusive, as I did not reach Londonuntil the middle of the seventies . In England everythingi s twenty years out o f date before it gets printed ; and itmay be that the change had been in Operation long beforeit was accurately observed . It has also to be consideredthat the Old literary school never dreamt Of using its eyesor ears, and would invent descriptions Of sights andsounds with an academic sel f-sufficiency which led lateron to its death from acute and incurable imposture . Its

408


stage queens as being“considered merely as parts , not

worth a tinker’s oath,” i s not founded on the real ex

perience of Mrs. Saker, whose career has run on lighterl ines . My own age in the sixties was so tender that Icannot pretend to know with any nicety what the “principal boy

”of the pantomime was l ike in her petticoats

as a private person at that period ; but I have a strongsuspicion that she tended to be Older and occasionallystouter than the very latest thing in that l ine ; and it isthe ultra-latest thing that Miss Pattie Browne has studiedfor Avonia Bunn . On the whole I doubt whether theCourt company knows a scrap more about the pro fessional atmosphere Of the old “Wells” than the audience .The “non-theatrical folk” came OE better, with oneexception. I know that Mr . Dion Boucicault as SirWi lliam Gower can claim a long-established stage con

vention in favor of his method of portraying crusty senility . But I have grown out of al l endurance of that convention. It is no more l ike a real Old man than a wornout billiard table is l ike a meadow ; and it wastes andworries and perverts the talent o f an actor perfectlycapable of making a sincere study of the part . We wouldall, I believe , will ingly push the stage old man into thegrave upon whose brink he has been cackling and doddering as long as we can remember him . If my vengeancecould pursue him beyond the tomb, it should not stopthere . But so far

,at least

,he shall go i f my malice can

prevail against him . Miss Isabel Bateman is almostcharming as Sir William’s ancient sister, and would bequite so i f she also were not touched by the tradition thatold age, in comedy, should always be made ridiculous .Mr. James Erskine is generally understood to be a Lordling, and, as such, a feeble amateur actor . I am bound

410


to say, in defence of a trampled aristocracy, that he rosesuperior to the accident o f birth , and acted h is part asw ell as it could be acted . This , I observe, i s explainedaway on the ground that he has only to be himself on thestage . I can only reply that the accomplishment of a featso extremely diffi cult entitles him to count the explanation as a very high compl iment . Mr . Sam Sothern gi vesus a momentary glimpse o f Lord Dundreary : I wonder

what the younger generation th inks of it ? Miss IreneVanbrugh , in the title part, which is not, to tell the truth,a difficult one in the hands of the right person, vanquishesit easily and successfully, getting quite outside those comicrel ie f l ines within which her lot has been so often cast .As to the play itsel f, its charm ,

as I have already hinted,l ies in a certain delicacy which makes me loth to lay myfingers on it . The li fe that it reproduces had been alreadyportrayed in the real sixties by Dickens in his sketch of

the Crummles company, and by Anthony Trollope in hischronicles of Barsetshire . I cannot pretend to think thatMr . Pinero , in reverting to that period, has real ly had toturn back the clock as far as his own sympathies and

ideals are concerned . It seems to me that the world isto him stil l the world of Johnny Eames and Li ly Dale

,

Vincent Crummles and Newman Noggs : his Paula Tan

querays and Mrs . Ebbsmiths appearing as pure aberra

tions whose external diEerences he is able to observe asfar as they can be Observed without the inner clue

,but

whose point of view he has never found . That is whyMr . Pinero, as a critic of the advanced guard in modernl i fe , is unendurable to me . When I meet a musician ofthe old school , and talk Rossini and Bellini and Donizetti ,Spohr and Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer with h im , w e geton excellently together ; for the music that is so empty

411


and wooden and vapid and mechanical to the young lionsOf Bayreuth , is ful l of sentiment, imagination and dramatic force to us . But when he begins to deplore the“passing craze for Wagner

,and to explain the horrors

and errors o f the Bayreuth school : its lack o f melody,its perpetual “recitative,

” its tearing discords,its noisy

orchestration overwhelming and ruining the human voice ,I get up and flee . The unsympathetic discourse aboutWagner may be wittier than the sympathetic discourseabout Donizetti but that does not make it any the moretolerable to me, the speaker having passed from a subjecthe understands to one that has virtually no existence forhim . It is j ust so with Mr. Pinero . When he plays methe tunes o f 1860, I appreciate and sympathise . Everystroke touches

'

me : I dwell on the dainty workmanshipshown in the third and fourth acts : I rejoice in being oldenough to know the world of his dreams . But when hecomes to 1890, then I thank my stars that he does notread the “Saturday Review .

” Please remember that itis the spirit and not the letter o f the date that I insist on .

“The Benefit o f the Doubt” is dressed in the fashions oftoday ; but it might have been written by Trollope .

“Trelawny of the Wells” confessedly belongs to the dayso f Lily Dale. And whenever Li ly Dale and not Mrs .Ebbsm ith i s in question

,Mr . Pinero may face with com

plete equanimity the risk of picking up the“Saturday

Review” in mistake for the “Mining Journal .”

Very diEerent are my sentiments towards the authoro f

“Charlotte Corday” at the Adelphi , whoever he maybe . He has missed a rare chance of giving our playgoersa lesson they richly deserve . Jean Paul Marat,

“people ’sfriend” and altruist par excellence, was a man just aftertheir ownhearts—a man whose virtue consisted in bum

412


(school Of Delaroche) and her cleverness and diligencecarry her successfully through all the theatrical businessof the part. Miss Mabel Hackney and Mr. Vibart gainsome ground by their playing : the older hands do notlose any. But the play is of no real importance.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

The Coxcomb. By Beaumont and Fletcher. Actedby the Elizabethan Stage Society in the Hal l o f theInner Temple. 10 February, 1898 .

CONFESS to a condescending tolerance for Beaumontand

'

Fletcher. It was , to be sure , no merit of theirsthat they were born late enough to come into the

field enthusiastically conscious o f their art in the ful ldevelopment to which Shakespeare had brought it, insteadOf blundering upon its discovery like the earl ier men .

Still , merit or no merit, they were saved from the clumsyhorseplay and butcherly rant Of Marlowe as models ofwit and eloquence

,and from the resourceless tum-tum of

his “mighty l ine” as a standard for their verse . When one

thinks o f the donnish insolence and perpetual th ickskinned swagger o f Chapman over his unique achievements in subl ime balderdash , and the opacity that prevented Webster, the Tussaud laureate, from appreciatinghis own stupidity—when one thinks of the whole rabbleof dehumanised specialists in elementary blank verseposing as the choice and master-spirits of an art that had

414


produced the stories of Chaucer and the old mysteryplays

,and was even then pregnant with “The Pilgrim ’s

Progress,i t is hard to keep one’s critical blood cold

enough to discriminate in favor of any Elizabethanwhatever . Nothing short o f a statue at Deptford to thebenefactor o f the human species who exterminated Marlowe

,and the condemnation of Mr. Swinburne to spend

the rest of his l i fe in sel l ing photographs of it to Americantourists, would meet the poetic j ustice of the case . Weare not all

,happi ly

,vi ctims Of the literary aberration that

led Charles Lamb to revive El izabethanism as a moderncult. We forgive him his addiction to it as w e forgivehim his addiction to gin .

Unfortunately , Shakespeare dropped into the middleo f these rufl‘ianly pedants and since there was no othershop than theirs to serve his apprenticeship in , he hadperforce to become an El izabethan too . In such a schoolo f falsehood, bloody-mindedness , bombast and intellectual cheapness , his natural standard was inevitablydragged down , as w e know to our cost ; but the degree towhich he dragged their standard up has saved them fromobl ivion . It makes one giddy to compare the execrablerottenness o f the “

Jew of Malta” with the humanity andpoetry o f

“The Merchant of Venice . Hamlet, Othello ,

and Iago are masterpieces beside Faustus,Bussy d’

Am

boise, and Bosola . After Shakespeare,the dramatists

were in the position of Spohr after Mozart. A ravishingsecular art had been opened up to them

,and was refining

their senses and ennobling their romantic illusions andenthusiasms instead of merely stirring up their basestpassions . Cultivated lovers of the beauties of Shakespeare

’

s art—true amateurs , in fact—took the place o f

the Marlovian crew . Such amateurs,let loose in a field

415


newly reaped by a great master, have always been ableto glean some dropped ears

,and even to raise a brief

aftermath . In this way the world has gained manycharming and fanciful

,though not real ly original , works

o f art— blank verse dramas after Shakespeare,rhetorical

frescoes after Raphael , .fugues after Bach,operas after

Mozart, symphonies after Beethoven , and so on . This,I take it, i s the distinction between Marlowe and Company and the firm of Beaumont and Fletcher . The pairwrote a good deal that was pretty disgraceful ; but at al levents they had been educated out Of the possibil ity o f

writing “Titus Andronicus .” They had no depth,no

conviction, no religious or philosophic basis , no real powero r seriousness— Shakespeare himsel f was a poor masterin such matters— but they were dainty romantic poets ,and really humorous character-sketchers in Shakespeare ’spopular style : that is, they neither knew nor cared anything about human psychology

,but they could mimic the

tricks and manners of their neighbors, especial ly the vulgarer ones

,in a highly entertaining way.

“The Coxcomb is“ not a bad sample of their art . Mr .Poel has had to bowdleri se it in deference to the modestyof the barristers of the Inner Temple . For instance ,Mercury’s relations with Maria stop short of exactingher husband ’s crowning sacrifice to friendship ; and whenthe three merry gentlemen make Riccardo too drunk tokeep his appointment to elope with Viola, the purposewith which the four roysterers sally out into the street,much insisted on by Beaumont and Fletcher, is discreetlyleft to the gui lty imagination o f the more sophisticatedspectators . With these exceptions the play was presentedas fairly as could be expected .

The performance was one of the best the El izabethan

416


the audience were bored ; but the explanation o f that issimple : they were the people who have no taste forElizabethan drama . After all , you cannot plunge intothese things absolutely without connoisseurship .

SHAKESPEARE’S MERRY GENTLEMEN

Much Ado About Nothing. S t . James’s Theatre. 16

February, 1898 .

UCH ADO is perhaps the most dangerous actormanager trap in the whole Shakespearean repertory. It is not a safe play like “The Mer

chant Of Venice” or “As You Like It,” nor a serious play,

l ike Hamlet.” Its success depends on the way it ishandled in performance ; and that, again, depends on theactor-manager being enough o f a critic to discriminateruthlessly between the pretension of the author and hisachievement.The main pretension in Much Ado is that Benedickand Beatrice are exquisitely witty and amusing persons .They are , of course, nothing of the sort. Benedick ’spleasantries might pass at a sing-song in a public—houseparlor ; but a gentleman rash enough to venture on themin even the very mildest £52-a-year suburban imitationo f polite society to-day would assuredly never be invitedagain . From his first joke

,

“Were you in doubt, sir, that

you asked her ?” to this last,

“There is no staE morereverend than one tipped with horn ,

” he is not a wit, buta blackguard . He is not Shakespeare ’s only failure inthat genre . It took the Bard a long time to grow out of

418


the provincial conceit that made him so fond of exhibitinghis accomplishments as a master of gallant badinage . Thevery thought of Biron, Mercutio, Gratiano and Benedickmust

,I hope

,have covered him with shame in his later

years . Even Hamlet’s airy compliments to Ophelia before

the court would make a cabman blush . But at leastShakespeare did not value h imsel f on Hamlet’s indecentj ests as he evidently did on those of the four merry gentlemenOf the earlier plays . When he at last got convietion of sin, and saw th i s sort o f levity in its proper light ,he made masterly amends by presenting the blackguardas a blackguard in the person of Lucio in “Measure for

Measure .

” Lucio, as a character study, i s worth fortyBenedicks and Birons . His Obscenity is not only inoffensive, but irresistibly entertaining, because it is drawnwith perfect skill , OEered at its true value , and gi ven itsproper interest, without any complicity o f the author inits lewdness . Lucio is much more o f a gentleman thanBenedick, because he keeps his coarse sal l ies for coarsepeople . Meeting one woman, he says humbly,

“Gentleand fair : your brother kindly greets you . Not to beweary with you, he

’s in prison . Meeting another, hehails her sparkingly with “

H ow now ? which of your hipshas the more profound sciatica ?” The one woman is alay sister, the other a prostitute . Benedick or Mercutiowould have cracked thei r low j okes on the lay sister , andbeen beld

’

up as gentlemen of rare w it and excel lent discourse for it. Whenever they approach a woman or anOld man, you shiver with apprehension as to what brutality they will come out with .

Precisely the same th ing, in the tenderer degree of hersex , i s true of Beatrice . In her character of professedw it she has only one subject, and that is the subj ect which

419


a really witty woman never j ests about, because it is tooserious a matter to a woman to be made light of withoutindelicacy . Beatrice j ests about it for the sake of theindelicacy. There is only one thing worse than the Elizabethan “merry gentleman,

” and that is the El izabethan“merry lady .

”

Why is it then that w e still want to see Benedick andBeatrice, and that our most eminent actors and actressesstil l want to play them ? Before I answer that verysimple question let me ask another . Why is it that DaPonte ’s “dramma giocosa,

” entitled “Don Giovanni , a

loathsome story of a coarse, witless, worthless l ibertine ,w ho kills an Old man in a duel and is final ly draggeddown through a trapdoor to hell by his twaddling ghost,i s still , after more than a century, as

“immortavl

” as “MuchAdo ?” Simply because Mozart clothed it with wonderfulmusic, which turned the worthless words and thoughtsof Da Ponte into a magical human drama o f moods andtransitions of feeling. That is what happened in a smallerway with “Much Ado . Shakespeare shows himself init a common-place librettist working on a stolen plot, buta great musician . No matter how poor, coarse, cheapand obvious the thought may be , the mood is charming,and the music of the words expresses the mood . Paraphrase the encounters Of Benedick and Beatrice in thestyle of a blue-book

,carefully preserving every idea they

present, and it will become apparent to the most infat

uated Shakespearean that they contain at best nothingout o f the common in thought or wit, and at worst a gooddeal of vulgar naughtiness . Paraphrase Goethe , Wagnero r Ibsen in the same way, and you wil l find original Observation, subtle thought, wide comprehension , far-reaching intuition and serious psychological study in them .

420


canunderstand his jokes and platitudes , and are flatteredwhen w e are told of the subtlety of the wit we have relished, and the profundity of the thought we have fathomed. Englishmen are special ly susceptible to this sortof flattery, because intellectual subtlety is not their strongpoint. In dealing with them you must make them bel ievethat you are appealing to their brains when you are real lyappealing to their senses and feel ings . With Frenchmenthe case is reversed : you must make them bel ieve thatyou are appealing to their senses and feelings when youare really appealing to their brains . The Engl ishman

,

slave to every sentimental ideal and dupe o f every sensuous art, wil l have it that his great national poet is athinker . The Frenchman , enslaved and duped only bysystems and calculations

,insists on his hero being a sen

timentalist and artist . That is why Shakespeare is es

teemed a master-mind in England, and wondered at asa clumsy barbarian in France .

However indiscriminate the public may be in its Shakespeare worship, the actor and actress who are to makea success Of “Much ' Ado” must know better. Let themonce make the popular mistake of supposing that whatthey have to do is to bring out the w it o f Benedick andBeatrice, and they are lost . Their business in the

“merrypassages is to cover poverty of thought and coarseness of

inuendo by making the most of the grace and dignity ofthe diction . The sincere, genuinely dramatic passageswill then take care of themselves . Alas ! Mr . Alexanderand Miss Jul ia Neilson have made the plunge withoutwaiting for my advice . Miss Nei lson, throwing away al lher grace and all her music, strives to play the merrylady by dint of conscientious gambolling . Instead o f ut

tering her speeches as exquisitely as possible, she rattles

422


through them , laying an impossible load of archness onevery insignificant conjunction, and cl ipping all the important words unti l there is no measure or melody leftin them . Not even the wedding scene can stop her : afteran indignant attitude or two she redoubles her formerskittishness . I can only implore her to give up al l herdeep-laid Beatricisms, to discard the movements Of MissEl len Terry

,the voice of Mrs . Patrick Campbell , and the

gaiety o f'

Miss Kitty Loftus , and try the eEect o f Jul iaNeilson in all her grave grace taken quite seriously . Mr .

Alexander makes the same mistake, though, being morej udicious than Miss Neilson, he does not carry it out sodisastrously . H is merry gentleman is patently a dutifulassumption from beginning to end . He smiles , rackets ,and bounds up and down stairs like a quiet man w ho has

j ust been rated by his wi fe fOr habitual dulness beforecompany . It is all hOpeless : the charm o f Benedick cannot be realised by the spryness of the actor ’s legs , theflashing of his teeth , or the rattle of his laugh : nothingbut the music of the words—above al l , not their meaning—can save the part . I wish I could persuade Mr . Alexander that i f he were to play the part exactly as he playedGuy Domville , it would at once become ten times morefascinating. He should at least take the revelation Of

Beatrice ’s suppo sed love for him with perfect seriousness .The more remorsefully sympathetic Benedick is when shecomes to bid him to dinner after he has been gulled intobel ieving she loves him , the more exquisitely ridiculousthe scene becomes . It is the audience ’s turn to laughthen , not Benedick

’s .Of al l Sir Henry Irving’s manifold treasons againstShakespeare , the most audacious was his virtual ly cuttingDogberry out of “Much Ado .

” Mr . Alexander dOes not

423


go so far ; but he omits the fifth scene of the third act,

upon which the whole eEect Of the later scenes depends ,since it is from it that the audience really gets Dogberry’smeasure . Dogberry is a capital study of parochial character. Sincerely played, he always comes out as a veryreal and highly entertaining person . At the St . James ’s ,I grieve to say, he does not carry a moment

’s convictionhe is a mere mouthpiece for malapropisms , all o f whichhe shouts at the gallery with intense consciousness of theirabsurdity, and with Open anxiety lest they should passunnoticed. Surely it is clear, i f anything histrionic isclear, that Dogberry

’s first qualification must be a com

plete unconsciousness of himself as he appears to others .Verges, even more dependent than Dogberry on thatcut-out scene with Leonato, is almost annihilated by itsexcision ; and it was hardly worth wasting Mr . Esmondon the remainder.When I have sa1d that neither Benedick nor Beatricehave seen suffi ciently through the weakness o f Shakespeare’s merriments to concentrate themselves on thepurely artistic qualities of their parts , and that Dogberryis nothing but an excuse for a few laughs , I have madea somewhat heavy deduction from my praises of the revival. But these matters are hardly beyond remedy ; andthe rest is excellent. Miss Fay Davis ’s perfect originalitycontrasts strongly with Miss Neilson’s incorrigible imitativeness. Her physical grace is very remarkable ; andshe

“creates her part between its few l ines, as Hero musti f she is to fill up her due place in the drama . Mr . FredTerry is a most engaging Don Pedro ; and Mr . H . B .

Irving is a striking Don John, though he is becoming tooaccomplished an actor to make shift with that single smilewhich is as well known at the St . James ’s by th is time

424


room . Over 4000 people pay nightly at her doo rs ; andthe spectacle o f these thousands , serried in the vast pitand empyrean gallery, is so fascinating that the strangerwho first beholds it can hardly turn away to look at thestage . Forty years ago Mrs . Sara Lane built this theatre ;and she has managed it ever since . It may be no suchgreat matter to handle a single playhouse—your Irvings

,

Trees , Alexanders , Wyndhams , and other upstarts ofyesterday can do that ; but Mrs . Lane is said to own thewhole ward in which her theatre stands . Madame SarahBernhardt’s diamonds fill a j ewel-box : Mrs. Lane’s arereputed to fil l sacks . When I had the honor o f beingpresented to Mrs . Lane, I thought of the occasion whenthe late Sir A ugustus Harris, her only serious rival inmanagerial fame, had the honor of being presented tome . The inferiority of the man to the woman was manifest . Sir Augustus w as, in comparison, an hystericalcreature . Enterprise was with him a frenzy which kil ledhim when it reached a climax of success . Mrs . Lanethrives on enterpr1se and success , and is capable , selfcontained, practical, vigilant, everything that a good general should be . A West End star is to her a person towhom she once gave so many pounds or shillings a week ,and who is now , in glittering and splendid anxiety , begging for engagements

,desperately wooing syndicates and

potential backers , and living on Alnaschar dreams andold press notices which were unanimously favorable ( i fyou excluded those which were obviously mal ignant personal attacks ) . Mrs . Lane , wel l furnished with realities ,has no use for dreams ; and she knows syndicates andcapitalists only as suspicious characters who want hermoney, not as courted deities with powers of l i fe anddeath in their hands . The fortune of her productions

426

. Dramat ic Opinions and Essays

means little to her : i f the piece succeeds , so much thebetter : i f not, the pantomime pays for all .The clergyman ’s box ,

which w as about as large as anaverage Metropo l itan rai lway station , w as approachedfrom the stage itsel f ; so that I had opportunities of criticising both from before the curtain and behind it. Iwas struck by the absence of the worthless , heart less , incompetent people who seem to get employed with suchfacil ity—nay

,sometimes apparently by preference~ —ln

West End theatres . The West End calculation for musical farce and pantomime appears to be that there is“a silver mine” to be made by paying several pounds aweek to people who are worth nothing, provided youengage enough of them . This is not Mrs . Lane’s plan .

Mr . Bigwood,the stage-manager, is a real stage-manager,

to Whom one can talk on unembarrassed human terms asone capable man to another, and not by any means an erratic art failure from Bedford Park and the Slade School ,or one of those beachcombers of our metropolitan civilisation who dri ft to the West End stage because its fringeo f short- l ived ventures provide congenital liars and impostors with unique opportunities o f drawing a few

months ’ or weeks ’ salary before their preoccupied andworried employers have leisure to realize that they havemade a bad bargain . I had not the pleasure Of makingthe prompter ’s acquaintance ; but I should have beensurprised to find him the only person in the theatre whocould not read , though in the West I should have expectedto find that his principal qualification . I made my way

under the stage to look at the working o f the star-trapby which Mr . Lupino was flung up through the boardslike a stone from a volcano ; and there , though I found

eight men wasting their strength by overcoming a coun

427


terw eight which, in an up-to-date French theatre de

féerie, is raised by one man with the help of a pulley, thecarpenter-machinist in command was at once recognisableas a wel l-selected man . On the stage the results of thesame instinctive sort of j udgment were equally apparent .The display of beauty was suffi ciently voluptuous ; butthere were no good-for-nothings : it was a company o f

men and women, recognisable as fellow-creatures,and

not as accidentally pretty cretinous freaks . Even the lowcomedians were not blackguards, though they were certainly not fastidious , Hoxton being somewhat Rabelaisianin its ideas of broad humor. One scene, in which the horrors of sea-sickness were exploited with great freedom ,

made the four thousandsons and daughters o f Shoreditchscream with laughter . At the cl imax, when four voyagerswere struggl ing violently for a single bucket, I lookedstealthi ly round the box

,in which the Church

,the Peerage

and the Higher Criticism were represented . Al l threewere in convulsions . Compare this with our .West Endmusical farces, in which the performers strive to makesome inane scene go” by trying to suggest to the starving audience that there is something exquisitely loose andvicious beneath the dreary fatuity o f the surface . Whowould not rather look at and laugh at four men pretending to be seasick in a wildly comic way than see a rowo f young women singing a chorus about being “GaietyGirls” with the del iberate intention of conveying to theaudience that a Gaiety chorister’s profession— their own

profession— is only a mask for the sort of l i fe which isrepresented in Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Squareafter midnight ? I quite agree with my friend the clergyman that decent ladies and gentlemen who have given upWest End musical farce in disgust will find themselvesmuch happier at the Britannia pantomime.

428


the varieties o f a musical farce should not include afew items from the conventional “assault-at-arms ,

” culm inating in some stalwart sergeant, after the usual sl icingo f lemons , leaden bars and silk handkerchiefs, cutting askirt-dancer in tw o at one stroke . At the Britannia MissSinden real ly danced, acted, and turned out quite a charming person . I was not surprised ; for the atmosphere wasaltogether more bracing than at the other end o f the town .

These poor playgoers , to whom the expenditure of half aguinea for a front seat at a theatre is as outrageously andextravagantly impossible as the purchase of a deer forestin Mars is to a millionaire

,have at least one excel lent

qual ity in the theatre . They are j ealous for the dignityof the artist, not derisively covetous o f his (or her ) degradation. When a white statue which had stood for thirteen minutes in the middle of the stage turned out to beMr . Lupino, who forthwith put on a classic plasticity, andin a series of rapid poses claimed popular respect for “theantique,

” it was eagerly accorded ; and his demon conflictwith the powers of evil , involving a desperate broadswordcombat

,and the most prodigious plunges into the earth

and,proj ections therefrom by volcanic traps as aforesaid,

was conducted with al l the tragic dignity o f Richard III .and received in the true Aristotelean spirit by the au

dience . The fairy queen, a comely prima donna whoscorned al l frivol ity , was treated with entire respect andseriousness . Altogether, I seriously recommend thoseof my readers who find a pantomime once a year goodfor them , to go next year to the Britannia, and leavethe West End to its boredoms and al l the otherdoms thatmake it so expensively dreary.

Oh, these sentimental , second-sighted Scotchmen !Reader : would you like to see me idealised by a master

430


hand ? I f you would,buy the Sunday Special” of the

3rd.

instant, and study Mr . Robert Buchanan’

s open letterto me . There you will find the ideal G. B . S . in “thedaring shamelessness of a powerful and fearless nudity .

”

This is the sort o f thing that flatters a timid, sedentaryliterary man . Besides , i t protects him : other people be

l ieve it al l,and are ' afraid to hit the poor paper Titan .

Far be it from me to say a word against“

so eEective anadvertisement ; though when I consider its generosity I

cannot but blush for having taken in so magnanimous anideal iser . Yet a great deal of it is very true : Mr .

Buchanan is altogether right, it seems to me , in identifying my views with his father ’s Owenism ; only I claimthat Comte ’s law of the three stages has been operatingbusi ly since Owen’s time , and that modern Fabianismrepresents the positive stage of Owenism . I shall notplead against the highly complimentary charge o f im

pudence in its proper sense o f shamelessness . Shame isto the man w ho fights with his head what cowardice isto the man who fights with his hands : I have the sameopinion o f i t as Bunyan put into the mouth of Faithfulin the Valley of Humiliation . But I do not commit myself to Mr . Buchanan’s account of my notions of practi calreform . It is true that when I protest against our marriage laws , and Mr. Buchanan seizes the occasion to Ob

serve that “the idea of marriage,spiritual ly speaking, i s

absolutely beauti ful and ennobling,” I feel very much as

i f a Chinese mandarin had met my humanitarian obj ection to starving criminals to death or cutting them intoa thousand pieces , by blandly remarking that

“the ideao f evil-doing leading to suff ering is , spiritual ly speaking,absolutely beauti ful and ennobling.

” I f Mr. Buchananis content to be forbidden to spiritually ennoble himsel f

431


except under legal conditions so monstrous and immoralthat no di sinterestedly prudent and self-respecting personwould accept them when free from amorous infatuation

,

then I am no t . Mr . Buchanan ’s notion that I assumethat “marriage is essential ly and absolutely an immoralbargain between the sexes in so far as it conflicts withthe aberrations and caprices of the human appetite

,i s a

wildly bad shot. What on earth has marriage to do withthe aberrations and caprices o f human appetite ? Peoplemarry for companionship, not for debauchery . Whythat wholesome companionship should be a means Ofmaking amiable and honest people the helpless prey ofdrunkards , criminals, pesti ferous invalids , bullies, viragoes , lunatics , or even persons with whom,

through nofault on either side

,they find it impossible to live happily ,

I cannot for the life of me' see ; and if Mr . Buchanan can ,I invite him to give his reasons . Can any sane persondeny that a contract “for better

,for worse” destroys al l

moral responsibility ? And is it not a revolting and indecent thing that any indispensable social contact shouldcompulsorily involve a clause, abhorrent to both partiesi f they have a scrap of honor in them, by which the persons of the parties are placed at each other ’s disposal bylegal force ? These abominations may not belong to “theidea o f marriage, spiritually speaking

” but they belongto the fact of marriage

,practically speaking ; and it is

with this fact that I,as a Real ist (Mr . Buchanan

’

s own

quite correct expression ) , am concerned . I f I were toget married myself

,I should resort to some country

where the marriage law is somewhat less than five cen

turies out o f date ; and as this seems to me as unreasonable a condition for the ordinary man as a trip to Bayreuth is to the ordinary gallery opera-goer, I do what

432

MR. CHARLES FROHMAN’

S MISSION

The H eart of Maryland: a drama in four acts. ByDavid Belasco . Adelphi Theatre, 9 April, 1898.

FTER The Heart of Maryland, at the Adelphi ,I begin to regard Mr . Charles Frohman as amanager with a great moral mission . We have

been suEering of late years in England from a wave ofblackguardism . Our population is so large that even itslittle minorities of intel lectual and moral dwarfs form aconsiderable body, and can make an imposing noise , so

long as the sensible majority remain silent,with its

clamor for war, for“empire ,

” for savage sports , savagepunishments

,flogging

,duelling, prize-fighting, 144 hours

’

bicycle races, nation’

al war dances to celebrate the cautious pounding of a few thousand barbarians to deathwith machine proj ectiles , fol lowed by the advance Of awhole British brigade on the wretched survivors under“a withering fire” which ki l ls twenty-three men, and nat ional newspaper paragraphs in which

.

British heroes ofthe rank and file, who wil l be flung starving onour streetsin a year or tw o at the expiration of their short service ,proudly describe the sport Of village-burning, remarking,with a touch of humorous cockney reflectiveness, on theamusing manner in which Old Indian women get “fairlyneedled” at the spectacle of their houses and crops beingburnt

,and mentioning w ith

‘

honest pride how their o f

ficers were elated and satisfied with the day ’s work . MyObj ection to this sort of fol ly is by no means purelyhumanitarian . I am quite prepared to waive the human

itarian point altogether, and to accept, for the sake ofargument, the position that w e must destroy or be de

434


stroyed . But I do not believe in the destructive force ofa combination o f descriptive talent with del irium tremens .I do not feel safe behind a rampart o f music-hal l enthusiasm : on the contrary, the mere thought of whatthese poor, howling; half-drunk patriots would do i f therol l of a hostile drum reached their ears, brings out acold sweat of pity and terror on me . Imagine going towar

,as the French did in 1870, with a stock of patriotic

ideal ism and national enthusiasm instead Of a stock o f

military efficiency . The Dervishes have plenty of racialidealism and enthusiasm , with religious fanaticism andpersonal hardihoo d to boot ; and much good it has donethem ! What would have happened to them if they hadbeen confronted by the army Of the future is only conceivable because , after all, the limit o f possibil ity is annihilation, which is conceivable enough . I picture thatfuture army to mysel f dimly as consisting o f half-a-dozenhighly-paid elderly gentlemen p rovided with a picnicbasket and an assortment of implements of wholesaledestruction . Depend upon it, its first meeting with our

hordes of Continental enslaved conscripts and thriftlessEnglish “surplus population

,

” disciplined into combiningall the sel f-helplessness of machinery with the animaldisadvantages of requiring food and being subj ect to

panic, and commanded by the grown-up boyishness forwhich the other professions have no use , wi ll be the deatho f mil itary melodrama . It i s quite clear , at all events ,that the way out of the present militaristic madness wil lbe found by the first nation that takes war seriously, or,as the melodramatisers of war wi ll say , cynical ly . It hasalways been so . The fiery Rupert, charging for God andthe King, got on excellently until Cromwel l , having someexperience as a brewer , made the trite experiment o f

435


raising the wages of the Parl iamentary soldier to themarket value of respectable men, and immediately wentover Rupert like a steam-rol ler . Napoleon served outenthusiasm, careful ly mixed with prospects of loot, ascold-bloodedly as a pirate captain serves out rum ,

andnever used it as an efficient substitute for facts and cannon . Wellington, with his characteristic Irish commonsense, held a steadfast opinion of the character of theaverage British private and the capacity o f the averageBritish officer which would wreck the Adelphi Theatre i futtered there ; but he fed them carefully, and carried ourpoint with them against the enemy . At the present time,i f I or anyone else were to propose that enough moneyshould be spent on the British soldier to make him aneffi cient marksman, to attract respectable and thrifty mento the service, to escape the necessity for fill ing the rankswith undersized wasters and pretending to bel ieve theglaring l ies as to their ages which the recruiting-sergeanthas to suggest to them, and to abolish the mi litary prisonwith its cat-O’

-nine-tails perpetually flourishing beforeour guardsmen in G ibraltar “fortress orders” and thel ike

,there would be a howl of stingy terror from the very

taxpayers who are now weeping with national enthusiasmover the heroism of the tw o Dargai pipers who , five yearshence, will probably be cursing, in their poverty, the daythey ever threw away their manhood on the British WarOffice .The question for the dramatic critic is , how is it possible to knock all this blood-and-thunder folly out of thehead of the British playgoer ? Satire would be uselesssense still more out o f the question . Mr . Charles Frohman seems to me to have solved the problem . You cannot make the Britisher see that his own bunkum is con

436


Kingdom . But we are sensible enough about otherpeople’s follies ; and the incontinent schoolboyishness o fthe hero is received with the coolest contempt . This

,

then , i s the moral mission of Mr . Charles Frohman . Heis snatching the fool ’s cap from the London playgoer andshowing it to him on the head o f an American . Meanwhile , our fool ish plays are going to America to returnthe compl iment. In the end, perhaps, we shal l get melodramas in which the her01sm 1s not despicable

,puerile

and blackguardly, nor the villainy mere mechanicalcriminal ity .

For the rest, The Heart of Maryland is not a badspecimen o f the American machine-made melodrama .

The actors know the gymnastics of their business, andwork harder and more smartly , and stick to it betterthan Engl ish actors . Mrs . Leslie Carter is a melodra

matic heroine o f no mean powers . Her dresses andgraces and poses cast a glamor of American high art onMr . Belasco ’s romance ; and her transports and tornadoes ,in which she shows plenty of professional temperamentand susceptibility

,give intensity to the curtain situations ,

and secure her a flattering series of recalls . She disdainsthe sil ly and impossible sensation scene with the bel l ,leaving it to a l ively young- lady athlete , who shows withevery muscle in her body that she i s swinging the bellinstead of being swung by it . Mr . Morgan , as the villain ,is received with special favor ; and Mr . Malcolm Wi ll iamspretends to be a corpse in such a l i fe- l ike manner thathe brings down the house

,already wel l disposed to him

for his excel lent acting before his decease . Nobody elsehas much of a chance .

438

THE DRAMA PURIFIED

The Conquerors : a drama in four act s. By PaulM. Pott er. S t . James’s Theatre . 14 April, '

1898 .

HEN civil i sation becomes eEete , the only cureis an irruption of barbarians .

’

When theLondon dramatist has driven everybody out

o f the theatre with his tailor-made romances and suburban love affairs , the bushranger and the backwoodsmanbecome masters of the situation . These outlandish peoplehave no grace Of language o r subtlety of thought . Theirwomen are either boyishly fatuous reproductions Of thebeautiful

,pure

,ladylike , innocent, blue-eyed, golden

haired divinities they have read about in Obsolete novels ,or scandalous but graphic portraits o f female rowdiesdrawn from the li fe . Their heroes are criminals and harddrinkers , redeemed, in an extremely unconvincing manner

,by their loves for the divinities aforsesaid. Their

humor is irreverent and barbarous ; and their emotionalstock- in- trade contains nothing but the commonest passions and cupidities , with such puerile points of honoras prevai l among the men w ho are outcasts where civilisation ex ists , and

“pioneers” where it does no t . Al l thesame, these bushwacking melodramatists have imagination, appetite, and heat of blood ; and these qual ities , suddenly asserting themselves in our e xhausted theatre ,produce the eEect of a stiE tumbler o f punch after thefiftieth watering Of a pot of tea . Being mysel f a teetotal ler, with a strong taste for the water of li fe , their

punch has no charms for me ; but I cordially admit its

439


superiority to the tea-leaf infusion ; and'

I perceive thatit wil l wake up the native dramatist

,and teach him that

i f he does not take the trouble to feel and to invent,and

even to think and to know , he will go under, and his placebe taken by competitors whose more appropriate functionin l iterature would appear to be the production of interminable stories of adventure in weekly numbers as abait for the pennies of Schoolboard children .

It is quite impossible, in view o f the third and fourthacts of “The Conquerors ,

” to treat it with any sort o fserious respect, even as a melodrama . And yet it produced what very few plays at the St . James ’s producethat is, a strong illusion that we were looking at the persons and events of Mr . Potter ’s story , and not merely atour

'

friends Mr . Alexander, Miss Neilson, and party, intheir newest summer costumes . At the end of the firstact, a gentleman in the audience so completely forgotMr . Alexander ’s identity

,that he got up and indignantly

remonstrated with him for the blackguardism with whichhe was behaving in the character o f “the Babe . Theincident which produced this triumph was , it is true , borrowed from Guy de Maupassant ; but the real istic vigorand brutal ity of the expression was Mr . Potter’s .The second act of the play may be taken as the reply

of the Censorship to Mr . Heinemann ’s charges o f il

l iberality . It culminates in a long, detailed , and elaboratepreparation by the hero for a rape on the person of theheroine . After a frantic scene o f ineEectual eEorts to

escape,with prayers for mercy, screams for help , and

blood-curdling hysteria, the lady faints . The gentlemanthen observes that he is a blackguard, and takes himsel fOE. Now it i s to be noted, that if he had been repre

sented as having eEectedhis purpose,-the Lord Chamber

440


is, that at the point reached three minutes before the fallof the curtain on the second act of “The Conquerors

,

the only possible way‘

Of making the play acceptable toan audience which is at all scrupulous is to al low thedrunken blackguard to commit the crime, and then mercilessly work out the consequences in the sequel . Th e

Lord Chamberlain ’s formula is about as eEective a safeguard Oi morality as a deathbed repentance . Howeverexcel lent its intention may be

,it Operates as an official

passport for licentiousness . It does not prevent the exhibition at the St . James ’s Theatre o f sensational sexuality, brutal ity, drunkenness , and murder ; but it takes carethat al l these things shall end happily

,charmingly

,t e

spectably, pretti ly, lady-and-gentlemanlikely for al lparties concerned . And on these conditions it rel ievesthe publ ic

,and the managers

,and the actors , and the

audience,o f al l sense o f responsibi lity in the matter . The

rel ief_ appears cheap at two guineas , but as it unfor

tunately involves the prohibition o f an honest treatmento f the theme , and suppresses the moral influence o f Ibsenand Tolstoi in the interest of Mr . Potter and the authorso f pieces l ike “A Night Out and “Gentleman Joe

,

” i ti s perfectly clear to me that it would pay the nation verywell indeed to commute the expectations Of the LordChamberlain and Mr . Redford for a lump sum , buy theirOffice from the Queen

,and abol ish the whole Censorship

as a pesti ferous sham which makes the theatre a plaguespot in British art.

“The Conquerors” i s not a difficult play to act ; and theSt . James ’s Company has no difli culty in producing animpression o f bril l iant abi lity in it, with the single exceptionof Miss Jul ia Nei lson, who only compromises herdignity and throws away her charm by attempting this

442


tearing,screaming

,sensational melodramatic business .

Mr . Alexander, having at last got hold of a part wh ichhas some brute reality about it (until the Lo rd Chamberlain intervenes ) , plays strongly and success fully ; andMr . Fred Terry creates so much interest by his appearances as the noble brother in the first tw o acts that thesubsequent petering out Of h is part i s highly exasperating. Miss Fay Davis , dividing the comic rel ie f with Mr .Esmond

,i s in the last degree fascinating ; Mr . Irving

condescends to murder and corduroys with his usualglamor ; Mr . Bertram Wal l i s sings the

“Erl King Mr .Vernon is a gruE general ; Mr . Beveridge, a whiskeredmajor ; Mr . Loraine , a nobody (a l ittle wasteful , this )Miss Constance Collier, a handsome and vindictiveChouan woman , w ho could not possibly have been bornand bred anywhere but in London ; and Miss Victor isbrought on express ly to make her age

,sex , and talent

ridiculous , a vulgar outrage which the audience , to itsgreat credit, refuses to tolerate . A s usual at the St .James ’s , the mounting is excellent, and the stage management thoroughly wel l carried out ; but Mr . Alexander , i tseems to me

,has not yet noticed that these barbarian

melodramas,with their profusion of action and dialogue ,

do not require, and it fact wi l l not bear , the long si lenceswhich are necessary in order to give a stale, scanty, London-made play an air of having something in it, even i fthat something has to be manufactured between the l inesout of impressive listenings

,posing, grimacings, and

“business .” I f Mr . Alexander wi l l take a look at theAmericans at the Adelphi , he wi l l see that they talkstraight on

,losing as l i ttle time as possible . There is

none Of the usual Engl ish attempt to get the acting inbetween the l ines instead of on the l ines . They knowbetter than to give the audience time to think.

443

KATE TERRY

The Master : an original comedy in three acts. ByG. Stuart Ogilvie. Globe Theatre, 23 April, 1898.

Lord and Lady Algy : an original light comedy inthree acts. By R. C. Carton. Comedy Theatre. 21

April, 1898 .

MUST say Mr . Stuart Ogilvie has an Odd notion ofhow to write a part to suit a particular actor . Hereis Mr . Hare, one o f the very few English actors

one dare send a foreigner to see, excelling in the representationof all sorts and conditions o f quick, clear, crisp,shrewd, prompt, sensible men . Enter to him Mr . Ogilvie,with a part expressly designed to show that al l this isnothing but a pig-headed aEectation, and that the truehumanity beneath it is the customary maudl in, muzzy,brainless , hysterical sentimentality and excitability whichis supposed to touch the heart o f the British playgoer,and which , no doubt, does aEect h im to some extent whenhe induces in himsel f the necessary degree of susceptibility with a little alcohol . What a situation ! And it wouldhave been so easy to provide Mr. Hare with a part showing the worth and dignity of his own temperament ! Al lthrough “The Master” Mr . Ogilvie seems to be tryingto prove to Mr . Hare what a much finer and more genuine fellow he would have been i f nature had made hima Charles Warner or a Henry Neville . Apart from thepoint being an extremely debateable one, it seems hardlyquite polite to Mr . Hare , who , after all , cannot help beingh imsel f. This comes of an author making no seriousattempt to get to the point of view of the character he

professes to have dramatised—Of simply conspiring with

444


Corelli’

s work the result would be popular. The publicdoes not l ike to see a man playing down ; and I shouldinsult Mr . Ogilvie most fearfully if I were to assume thathe was doing his best in “The Master.” When

,after

stooping to a baby , he took the final plunge with a bandplaying “Soldiers Of our Queen” to a cheering crowd outside , I hid my face and heard no more .

The interest of the occasion was strongly helped out

by the reappearance of Miss Kate Terry,an actress un

known, except as an assiduous playgoer, to the presentgeneration . Miss Terry entered apologetical ly

,frankly

taking the position of an elderly lady who had come tolook after her daughter, and tacitly promising to do herbest not to be intrusive, nor to make any attempt at acting or anything of that sort, i f the audience would onlybe a little indulgent with her . She sat down on a sofa,looking very nice and kindly ; but the moment she hadto say something to Mr . Hare her Old habits got the better of her, and the sentence w as hardly out of her mouthbefore she recognized , as its cadence struck her ear,that she had acted it ,

’

and acted it uncommonly well . Theshame o f this discovery made her nervous ; but the morenervous she was

,the less she could help acting ; and the

less she could help acting, the more she put on the youthOf the time when she had last acted— a fearful indiscretion . However

,as the audience

,far from taking it in

bad part,evidently wanted more o f it, Miss Terry , after

a brief struggle,abandoned hersel f to her fate and went

recklessly for her part . It was not much of a part ; butshe gave the audience no chance of finding that out.

She apparently began,in point of skill and practice , j ust

where she had left off years ago , without a trace of rust .

Her first two or three speeches, though delicately distinct,

446


had a certain privacy o f pitch , I thought ; but almost before I had noticed it, it vanished, as she recaptured thepitch Of the theatre and the ear of the crowded audience .

She has distinguished skill , infallible j udgment, altogether extraordinary amenity of style, and withal a quiteenchanting air o f being a simple-minded motherly lady,who does not mean to be clever in the least, and neverwas behind the scenes in a theatre in her li fe . I sometimes dream that I am on a concert platform with a.violin in my hands and an orchestra at my back, hav ingin some inexplicable madness undertaken to play theBrahms Concerto before a full audience without knowingmy G string from my chanterelle . Whoever has notdreamt this dream does not know what humility means .

Trembl ing and desperate,I strike Joachim ’s attitude

,and

find , to my amazement, that the instrument responds instantly to my sense o f the music and that I am playingaway l ike anything . Miss Terry 3 acting reminds me o f

my imaginary violin-playing : she seems utterly innocento f it, and yet there it is , al l happening infallibly and del ightfully . But, depend on it, she must know all aboutit ; for how else does her daughter , Miss Mabel Terry,come to be so cunningly trained ? She has walked on tothe stage with a knowledge o f her business

,and a delicacy

in its execution , to which most of our younger leadingladies seem no nearer than when they first plundered onto the boards in a maze o f millinery and professional ignorance . Yes : the daughter gives the apparent naiveteof the mother away : i f that art were an accident of

Nature it could never be taught so perfectly . Indeed ,there were plenty o f l i ttle revelations of this kind forsharp eyes . I have already described how Miss KateTerry

’

s momentary nervousness at first threw her back

447


to the acting of thirty years ago . In that moment onesaw how much of the original Kate Terry her daughterhad just been reproducing for us . Then Miss Terry re

covered her self-possession and her own age ; and hereagain one saw that she was by no means going to be themaidenly Kate Terry with a matronly face and figure

,

but virtually a new actress of matronly parts,unsurpassed

in stage accompl ishment, and with a certain charm o f

temperament that will supply our authors with somethingthat they get neither from the dazzling cleverness o f Mrs .Kendal nor the conviction and comic force of Mrs .

Calvert, who alone can lay claim to anything approaching her technical powers . I do not feel sure that MissTerry could play Mrs . Alving in

“Ghosts” as Mrs . Theodore Wright plays it— if

,indeed

,she could bring hersel f

to play it at all— but I am sure that her art wi ll not fai lher in any play, however difficult, that does not positivelyantagonize her sympathies .

Stage art,even Of a highly cultivated and artificial

kind, sits so naturally on the Terrys that I dare say weshall hear a great deal about the family charm and veryl ittle about the family skill . Even Miss Ellen Terry ,whose keenness of intell igence is beyond al l dissimulation ,has often succeeded in making eminent critics bel ievethat her stagecraft and nervous athleticism are mere efflorescences o f her personal charm . But Miss MabelTerry has no special enchantments to trade upon— onlythe inevitable charms o f her age . She is not recognisablyher aunt’s niece . She is no t majestically handsome andgraceful like Miss Jul ia Nei lson ; nor voluptuously lovelyl ike Miss Lily Hanbury ; nor perilously bewitching likeMrs . Patrick Campbell . But she can speak beauti ful ly ,without the slightest trick or mannerism o f any sort ; and

448

Dramat ic Op inions and Essays

couple for whom the theatre has ventured to claim sympathy . They have one resource

,one taste , one amuse

ment, one interest, one ambition, one occupation, one accomplishment ; and that is betting on the turf. The“wholesomeness” consists o f the woman ’s boast thatthough she flirts, she always “runs straight -as i f itmattered a straw to any human being whether she ranstraight or not. A lady who is a gambler, a loafer , anda sponge, i s not likely to have any motive of the smallestmoral value for refraining from adultery . There arepeople who are beneath law-breaking as wel l as peoplewho are above it ; and Lord and Lady Algy are Of thatclass . But the play is altogether too trivial and sportiveto raise moral questions ; and I laughed at its humorswithout scruple . Mr. Henry Ford’s j ockey was the bestbit of character in the performance . Mr . Hawtrey, asthe Duke Of Marlborough at a fancy bal l , harmlesslydrunk

,makes plenty o f inoEensive fun ; and he and Miss

Compton have plenty of their popular and fami l iar business in the first and third acts . The other parts are real lyexasperating in view of the talent thrown away in them .

VAN AMBURGH REVIVED

The Club Baby : a farce in three acts. By EdwardG. Knoblauch . Avenue Theatre . 28 April, 1898 .

The Medicine Man: a melodramatic comedy in fiveacts . By H . D. Traill and Robert H ichens. Ly'ceumTheatre. 4 May, 1898.

HE CLUB BABY at the Avenue ought to haveb een called “The Stage Baby’s Revenge .” Theutter w orthlessnessof the sentiment in which our

actors and playgoers wallow is shown by their readinessto take an unfortunate little child w ho ought to be in bed,and make fun of it on the stage as cal lously as a clownat a country fair will make fun of a sucking pig. Butat the Avenue the baby turns the tables on its exploiters .The play tumbled along on the first night in an unde

servingly funny way unti l the end of the second act, whenthe baby was rashly brought on the stage . Then it wasal l over. It was not so much that the audience looked atthe baby ; for audiences , in their thoughtless moments ,are stupid enough to look at anything without blushing.

But that baby looked at the audience ; and its gaz e wouldhave reclaimed a gang of convicts . The pained wonderand unfathomable sadness with which it saw i ts elders ,from whom its ch ildl ike trust and reverence had expectedan almost godlike dignity, profanely making fools of

themselves with a string of ribald jests at its expense,came upon us as the crowing Of the cock came uponPeter . We went out between the act s and drank heavi lyas the best available substitute for weeping bitterly . I feven one man had had the grace to hang himself I shouldstill have some hopes of the British public. As it is,

' I

451


merely beg the Home Secretary to ask the magistrate whois responsible for the appearance of this child on thestage onwhat grounds he went out of his way to permitit. We have been at the trouble of passing an Act ofParliament to forbid the commercial exploitation of

children on the stage except in cases where the enforcement of the Act would banish from the theatre somemasterpiece of dramatic art written before the passingo f the Act. For instance, we did not wish to make

“Richard III .” impossible by unconditionally abolishing thelittle Duke of York, nor to suppress

“A Doll ’s House”

by depriving Nora Helmer of her ch ildren . But “TheClub Baby” i s a play newly written with the deliberateintention of doing precisely what the Act was passed to .

prevent. It is a play without meri t enough of any sortto give it a claim to the most trivial official indulgence ,much less the setting aside Of an Act of Parliament inits interest. And yet a magistrate licenses the employment in it, not of a boy or girl, but actual ly of a child inarms w ho is handed about the stage unti l eleven O ’clockat night. It is useless to appeal to playgoers, managers ,authors and people Of that kind in this matter. I f theexhibition of a regiment of new -born babies would raisean extra laugh or draw half-a-guinea over its cost, thatregiment of babies would be ordered and a play writtenround it with the greatest alacrity . But the Home Officeis responsible for the prevention of such outrages . S ir

Matthew White Ridley is at present receiving £5000 a.

year, partly at my expense, for looking after the administration of the laws regulating the employment of children . I f a factory owner employed a ch ild under thespecified age, or kept a

“young person” at work ten minutes after the specified hour, Sir Matthew would be down ,

452


the most enlightened of my fellow-critics to launch thethunder of the press at this abomination . Unfortunately

,

having little ch ildren of their own, and having Observe dthat a single night’s private theatricals gave much innocent delight to their babies, they thought it was quite acharming thing that the poor l ittle Punchinellos shouldhave such fun every night for several months . Truly ,as Talleyrand said, the father of a family is capable o f

anything. I was left to launch the little thunder I couldwield mysel f ; and the result, I am happy to say, was thatthe managers , including a wel l-known stage-managersince deceased, suEered so much anguish o f mind frommy criticisms, without any counterbalancing convictionthat their pieces were drawing a farthing more with thechildren than they would have drawn without them

,that

they mended their ways . But of late the epidemic hasshown signs Of breaking out again . I therefore think itonly fair to say that I also am quite ready to break out

again, and that I hope by this time my colleagues haverealised that their “bless-its-little-heart” patrosentimen

tal ity is not publicism .

As to the performance of The Club Baby,” all I need

to say i s that a long string o f popular comedians do theirbest with it

,and that a Miss Clare Greet, whom I do not

remember to have seen before, distinguishes herself verycleverly in the part of the country girl .Now that Sir Henry Irving has taken to encouragingcontemporary literature

,i t cannot be denied that he has

set to work in a sufficiently original fashion .~ Mr . H . D .

Traill i s an academic l iterary gentleman who , like Scho

penhauer, conceives the world as Will and the intellec

tual representations by which Man strives to make himself conscious of his wil l ; only Mr . Traill conceives these

454


things in a professional mode, the will being to him nota Will to Live

,but a Will to Write Books , and the proc

ess of making us conscious of these books by intellectual representations being simply reviewing. Some timein the eighties London rose up in revolt against th i s view .

The New Journalism was introduced . Lawless youngmen began to write and print the l iving English languageof their own day 1nstead of the prose style of one ofMacaulay’s characters named Addison . They split theirinfinitives, and wrote such phrases as

“a man nobodyever heard o f

” instead of a man of whom nobody hadever heard,

” or more classical still ,“a writer hitherto

unknown .

” Musical critics , instead of reading booksabout their business and elegantly regurgi tating their erudition

,began to listen to music and distinguish between

sounds ; critics of painting began to look at pictures ; critics of the drama began to look at something else besidesthe stage ; and descriptive writers actual ly broke intothe House o f Commons , elbowing the reporters into thebackground, and writing about political leaders as i f theywere mere play-actors . The interview, the illustrationand the cross-heading, hi therto looked on as American vulgarities impossible to English l iterary gentlemen

,

invaded al l our papers ; and, finally, as the cl imax andmasterpiece o f li terary Jacobinism , the

“Saturday Review” appeared with a signed article in it. Then Mr .Traill and al l his generation covered their faces withtheir togas and died at the base of Addison’s statue ,which al l the whi le ran ink . It is true that they got upand went home when the curtain fell ; but they made notruce with Jacobinism ; and Mr . Traill fled into the fortress of the “Times ,

” and hurled therefrom,under the

defiant title of “Literature,” a destructive mass of reviews

455


and publishers’ advertisements which caught me onemorning in a railway carriage and nearly kil led me . One

of the Jacobins was Mr . Hichens . He paid me the com

pliment of following up the assault on Academicism on

my Old lines—those Of musical criticism . He was wel lreceived by a revolutionary and l icentious generation ;but whatever circulation his novels and articles mightachieve , it was not to be expected that Mr . Trai l l wouldever consent to be seenspeaking to him in the street .’

And yet Sir Henry Irving, in the calmest manner, seemsto have ordered a play from the twain jointly . What ismore, he has got it . I hardly know how to describe theresult . I trace the theme Of the piece to

.

a story,wel l

known to Mr . Traill’s generation, of the l ion-tamer VanAmburgh , who professed to quel l the most ferociousanimals , whether human or not, by the power of his eyealone . Challenged to prove this power on the person Ofa very rough-looking laborer, he approached the manand fixed a soul-searching gaze onhim . The laborer soonevinced the greatest disquietude

‘

, became very red andself-conscious

,and finally knocked Van Amburgh down ,

accompanying the blow with a highly garnished demandas to who he was staring at . In “The Medicine Man

w e have Van Amburgh with the period o f quel l ing contemplation extended to five acts , and including not onlythe laborer

,Bil l Burge

,but also a beauteous maiden

named Sylvia . One can understand the humorous insanity o f such a story fascinating Mr . Hichens , and Mr .

Traill chuckling secretly at having planted it on the youngJacobin as a new idea . I find mysel f total ly unable totake it seriously : it sends me into a paroxysm of laughter whenever I think of it. I wonder which of the tw o

authors gave themuscular victim o f Van Amburgh Tre

456


sible. His Hogarthian make-up is not l ike anything nowdiscoverable at the docks ; his dialect has no touch of theEast End in it ; he is as incapable o f walking out Of aroom naturally as a real dock laborer is o f doing anexit .” However, it does not matter much ; the wholebusiness is such utter nonsense that a stagey dock laboreris quite in keeping with the freaki sh humors of Mr . Hichens , to whom the l i fe o f the poor is a tragic-comic phantasmagoria with a good deal o f poker and black eye in it .Only at a West End theatre could such a picture passmuster . Some o f it—the humors of Mrs . Burge, forinstance— is an outrage on humanity . But Mr. Hichenswill retrieve “The Medicine Man” easily enough , for hehas by no means mistaken his vocation in writing for thestage

,though he had better avoid col laboration with the

chartered dulness of academic history and the solemnfrivolity o f academic l iterature . It would take ten years '

hard descriptive reporting for the Star” or “Dai ly Mail”

to teach Mr . Trail l to Observe l i fe and to write seriously .

The first tinker he meets will tel l him a better ghoststory than the vague figment, despicable to his own common sense, which he has thought good enough to makea theme for the most exacting o f al l the forms of l iteraryart . That is your l iterary man al l Over—any old themefor a great occasion

,provided only nobody can suspect

you of believing in it.

G. B . S . VIVISECTED

14 May, 1898 .

URBKA ! I have found i t out at last . I now un

derstand the British drama and the British actor.

It has come about in this way .

A few weeks ago one Of my feet, which had borneme without complaining for forty years, struck work . Thespectacle Of a dramatic critic hOpping about the metropo

lis might have softened a heart of stone ; but the managers , I regret to say, seized the Opportunity to disable meby crowding a succession of first nights on me . A fterThe Medicine Man” at the Lyceum , the foot got intosuch a condition that it literally had to be looked into . Ihad no curiosity in the matter mysel f ; but the adm inistrationof an anaesthetic made my views o f no importance.It is to the anmsthetic that I ow e the discovery whichelict s my cry of Eureka !The beginning of the anaesthesia threw no new light

on the theatre . I was extinguished by the gas familiarto dentists ’ patients , and subsequently kept in a stateof annihilation with ether . My last recollection is a sortof chuckle at being wideawake enough to know when theoperator li fted my eyelid and tapped my eyeball to convince himself that he had made an end of me . It wasnot unti l I was allowed to recover that the process becamepublicly interesting. For then a very strange th ing happened . My character didnot come back all at once . Itsartistic and sentimental side came first : its morality, itspositive elements , its commonsense, its incorrigi ble Protestant respectability, did not return for a long time

after. For the first time in my life I tasted the bliss Of


having no morals to restrain me from lying, and nosense of reality to restrain me from romancing. I overflow ed with what people call “heart .” I acted and liedin the most touchingly sympathetic fash ion ; I felt prepared to receive unl imited kindness from everybody withthe deepest, tenderest gratitude ; and I was totally incapable o f even conceiving the notion of rendering anyonea service myself. I f only I could have stood up and talkeddistinctly as aman in perfect health and sel f-possession,I should have w on the hearts of everybody present unti lthey found me out later on. Even as it was, I was perfectly conscious of the value of my prostrate and halfdelirious condition as a bait for sympathy ; and I deliberately played for it in a manner which now makes meblush . I carefully composed eEective l ittle ravings , andrepeated them , and then started again and let my voicedie away, without an atom of shame. I called everybodyby their Christian names , except one gentleman whoseChristian name I did not know

,and I called him “dear

Old SO-and-so .

” Artistically, I was an immense suc

cess : moral ly, I simply had no existence .At last they quietly extinguished the lights, and stole

out of the chamber Of the sweet invalid who was now

sleeping like a child, but who, noticing that the last person to leave the room was a lady, softly breathed thatlady’s name in his dreams . Then the eEect of the an

aesthetic passed away more and more ; and in less thanan hour I was an honest taxpayer again

,with my heart

perfectly wel l in hand . And now comes the great question

,Was that a gain or a loss ? The problem comes

home to me with special force at this moment, because Ihave j ust seriously distracted public attention from theA’merican war by publishing my plays ; and I have been

460


arrerie. When this eEect is strong enough to give aserious jar to their artistic habits

,they generally mistake

the disagreeable sensation for a shock to their moralsense, it being one of their artistic conventions that it ispossible to shirk real life, and yet possess moral sense.O ften as I have to point this out , I had, unti l yesterday, yet to real ize fully the diEerence between Observingit in other people and experiencing it oneself. At lastI can speak of i t at first hand ; and now I understand itas I never understood it before . NO longer shall I lookat my sentimental, fiction-loving friends as Bismarckmight look at a rather engaging South Sea chief ; for Ihave actually changed personal ities with them . What ismore, I know how to reproduce the miracle at will ascertainly as i f I possessed the wishing-cap of Siegfried .

My wishing-cap is a bag of ether. With that, I canfirstplunge -into the darkness that existed before my birthand be simply nothing. Then I can come to life as anartist and a man o f feeling—as everything that I havebeen reproached so bitterly for not be ing. I can prolong that condition indefinitely by taking a whiE or two

o f ether whenever I feel the chill of a moral or intellectual impulse . I can write plays in it ; I can act in it ; Ican gush in it ; I can borrow money to set myself up asan actor-manager in it ; I can be pious and patriotic init ; I can melt touchingly over disease and death and murder and hunger and cold and poverty in it, turning allthe woes of the world into artistic capital for myself ; andfinally I can come back to full consciousness and eriticise mysel f as I was in it . The parable of Dr. Jekyll andMr. Hyde will be fulfilled in me, with th is difference , thatit is Hyde who will be popular and petted, and Jekyll

who will be rebuked for his callous , heartless cynicism.

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I have already ordered a set of cards inscribed G . B . S .

.At Home . .Tuesdays and Fridays under ether for sentimental, theatrical and artistic purposes . .Mondays andSaturdays normal for business engagements and publicaffairs .”

Here I must summari ly break OE. My doctor’s inves

tigation of my interior has disclosed the fact that formany years I have been converting the entire stock o f

energy extractable from my food (which I regret to sayhe disparages ) into pure genius . Expecting to find boneand tissue , he has been almost wholly disappointed, anda pale, volatile moisture has hardly blurred the scalpelin the course o f its excursions through my veins . Hehas therefore put it bluntly to me that I am already almost an angel , and that it rests with myself to completethe process summarily by writing any more articles before I have recovered from the eEects o f the operationand been renovated in the matter of bone and muscle .I have therefore pledged mysel f to send only the briefestline explaining why my article cannot appear this week .

It is also essential , in order to keep up the sympathy wh ichrages at my bedside , to make the very worst of my exhausted condition . Sad to say, there is enough of etherclinging round me sti ll to keep me doing this with avery perceptible zest.I canno more.

VALEDICTORY

21 May, 1898 .

s I l ie here, helpless and disabled, or, at best,nailed by one foot to the floor like a doomedStrasburg goose, a sense of inj ury grows on

me . For nearly four years— to be precise , since New

Year 1895— 1 have been the slave o f the theatre .’

It hastethered me to the mi le radius of foul and sooty air whichhas its center in the Strand , as a goat is tethered in thel ittle circle of cropped and trampled grass that makesthe meadow ashamed . Every week it clamors for itstale o f written words ; so that I am like a man fightinga windmill : I have hardly time to stagger to my feetfrom the knock-down blow o f one sail , when the nextstrikes me down . Now I ask , i s it reasonable to expectme to spend my life in this way ? For j ust consider myposition . Do I receive any spontaneous recognition forthe prodigies of skill and industry I lavish on an un

worthy institution and a stupid public ? Not a bit of itflialfm y time is spent in tell ing people what a clever manI am . It is no use merely doing clever things in England . The English do not know what to think until theyare coached , laboriously and insistently for years , in theproper and becoming opinion . For ten years past , withan unprecedented pertinacity and obstination , I have beendinning into the public head that I am an extraordinarilywitty

,bri ll iant

,and clever man . That is now part Of the

public Opinion o f England ; and no power in heaven or

on earth wi ll ever change it . I may dodder and dote ; Imay potboil and platitudinise ; I may become the butt

and chopping-block of all the bright, original spirits of

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which ended fatally after indescribable torments ; andwhen he tremblingly inquires whether the victims werenot hardened meat-eaters, they tel l him he must nottalk, as it is not good for him . Ten times a day I amcompelled to reflect onmy past l i fe, and on the limitedprospect o f three weeks or so of lingering moribunditywhich is held up to me as my probable future

,with the

intensity of a drowning man . And I can never j usti fyto myself the spending of four years on dramatic eriticism . I have sworn an oath to endure no more of it.Never again will I cross the threshold of a theatre . Thesubj ect is exhausted ; and so am I .Still, the gaiety of nations must not be eclipsed . Thelong string o f beautiful ladies who are at present in thesquare without, awaiting, under the supervision of twogallant policemen, their turn at my bedside, must be reassured when they protest, as they will , that the light

o f their li fe will go out i f my dramatic articles cease .To each of them I will present the flower left by her pred

ecessor, and assure her that there are as good fish inthe sea as ever came out of it. The younger generationis knocking at the door ; and as I open it there stepsspritely in the incomparable Max .

For the rest, let Max speak for himself. Iduty for ever, and am going to sleep .

dramatic opinions and essays by g. ber nard shaw

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