"REMNANT."
I wish now that I had not been compelled to postpone my visit to the
Royalty, for I think the fall of Baghdad must have put me a bit above
myself. Anyhow, I was less moved than usual by the triumph of virtue and
the downing of vice; and permitted myself to wonder how a play like
_Remnant_ ever found its way into the Royalty (of all theatres), and what
Mr. DENNIS EADIE (of all actors) was doing in this galley, this
melted-butter boat. And indeed there were moments when I could see that Mr.
EADIE himself shared my wonder, if I rightly interpreted certain signs of
indifference and detachment in his performance. I even suspected a sinister
intention in the title, though, of course, Messrs. MORTON and NICCODEMI
didn't really get their play off in the course of a bargain sale of
superannuated goods.
Apart from the Second Act, where Miss MARIE LÖHR (looking rather like a
nice Dutch doll) delivered the blunt gaucheries of _Remnant_ with a
delightfully stolid naïveté, the design of the play and its simple little
devices might almost have been the work of amateurs. The sordid quarrels
between _Tony_ and his preposterous mistress (whom I took to be a model,
till I found that he was only an artist in steam locomotives) were
extraordinarily lacking in subtlety. In all this Bohemian business one
looked in vain for a touch of the art of MURGER. What would one not have
given for something even distantly reminiscent of the _Juliet_ scene--"_et
le pigeon chantait toujours_"? And it wasn't as if this was supposed to be
a sham Americanised _quartier_ of to-day. We were in the true period--under
Louis PHILIPPE. Indeed I know no other reason (costumes always excepted)
why the scene was the Paris of 1840. For the purposes of the play _Tony_
might just as well have been a British designer of tanks (London, 1916).
Nor was there anything even conventionally French about the girl _Remnant_,
who might have been born next-door to Bow Bells.
[Illustration: REMNANT BARGAIN DAY.
_Tony_ ... MR. DENNIS EADIE.
"_Remnant_" ... MISS MARIE LÖHR.]
Miss MARIE LÖHR was the life and soul of the party. Her true comedy manner,
when she was serious, was always fascinating. She said with great
discretion her little Barriesque piece about the desirability of babies,
and she did all she knew to keep the sentiment from being too sickly-sweet.
Here she had strong assistance from Mr. EADIE as her lover _Tony_; for,
though he got a fine flash out of the green eye of jealousy when he
suspected his patron, _Jules_, of jumping his love-claim, it was obvious at
the end that the success of his professional ambitions was far more to him
than any affair of the heart. And, after all, when _Remnant_ complained of
a curious _bourdonnement_ in her ears, and _Tony_ had to reply solemnly,
"That which you hear is the beating of your heart to the music of your
soul," you could hardly expect a man with Mr. EADIE'S sense of humour to
throw much conviction into the statement.
Mr. C.M. LOWNE was a very passable _beau_, and made love to _Remnant_ with
that rich fruitiness of voice of which he is a past master. It was her
business (as she explained to _Tony_ when he surprised their two faces
within kissing distance of each other) to keep _Jules_ in good humour since
_Tony's_ chances depended upon his patronage. But it couldn't have helped
much to tell _Jules_ with such appalling candour that the shiver produced
by his kiss was the same kind as she had once felt when a rat ran over her
face during sleep. However, _Jules_ was not a _beau_ for nothing and could
afford this exceptional set-back to one of his many amours. There was, by
the way, an excellent little comedy scene between him and his wife, played
by Miss MURIEL POPE with a quiet humour as piquant as her gown.
As _Manon_, the querulous termagant that _Tony_ had taken for mistress,
Miss HILDA MOORE was not very kindly served by her part--so rudimentary
that its highest flight was achieved when, with a Parthian shot, she
referred to _Tony_ as a geni-ass.
I will not forecast a limited success for this play, for who would dare to
say that there is not always room in the broad British bosom for yet
another triumph of sentiment over ideas--I speak of the play itself and not
of the performance? If only for Miss LÖHR'S sake I could wish that the best
of fortune may attend it; for to have worn her hair as she did in the
Second Act, out of regard for the period, was a sacrifice as fine as any
that women have shown in the course of Armageddon (if I may judge of them
by their portraits in the Photographic Press), and she ought to have her
reward, bless her heart! O.S.
* * * * *
"GENERAL POST."
It would be easy to make fun of the exaggerations and ultra-simplifications
of Mr. TERRY'S new comedy. It is much pleasanter (and juster) to dwell on
its wholesomeness, its easy humour and its effect of honest entertainment.
Not a highbrow adventure, it is not to be judged by highbrow standards. It
is decently in key, and an exceptionally clever cast carried it adroitly
over any rough places. Remarkable, too, as almost the first popular
testimonial since the War began to the too-much-taken-for-granted
Territorials, who worked in the old days while we scoffed and golfed.
That's all to the good.
[Illustration: THE TAILOR WHO DID NOT NEED TO PRESS HIS SUIT.
_Sir Dennys Broughton_ ... MR. NORMAN MCKINNEL.
_Lady Broughton_ ... MISS LILIAN BRAITHWAITE.
_Edward Smith (tailor)_ ... MR. GEORGE TULLY.]
Our author's hero is an excellent provincial tailor, who is also keen
_Captain Smith_ in the Sheffingham Terriers. As tailor his chief customer,
as soldier his contemptuous scandalised critic, is _Sir Dennys Broughton_,
whose wayward flapper daughter _Betty_ is in the early fierce stages of
revolt against the stuffiness of life at Grange Court, meets _Smith_ over
some boys' club work, and, finding brains and dreams in him (a formidable
contrast to her loafing brother), falls into passionate first-love. _Smith_
is just as badly if more soberly hit, and recognising the impossibility of
the situation (quite apart from demonstrations by the alarmed _Broughtons_)
decides to take his tape and shears to his London house of business. The
date of all this being about the time of the misguided _Panther's_ fateful
leap on Agadir.
Act II. brings us to the second year of the War. Young _Broughton_, puppy
no longer, is gloriously in it, and has just been gazetted to a Territorial
regiment whose Colonel bears the not uncommon name of Smith. Our tailor, of
course, and a rattling fine soldier too. Having discovered this latter fact
and also formed a remarkably cordial relationship apparently in a single
day, the enthusiastic cub subaltern (distemper and snobbishness over and
done with) motors up his C.O., who is visiting his brother and partner, and
brings him in to Grange Court on the way. _Sir Dennys_, now a brassarded
private and otherwise a converted man, is still confoundedly embarrassed,
and stands anything but easy in the presence of his youngster's Colonel.
_Lady Broughton_, least malleable of the group, is frankly appalled by this
new _mésalliance_. Perhaps Mr. TERRY'S version of blue-blooded insolence
and fatuity is for his stage purpose rather crudely coloured, but who shall
say that the doctrine that a man in khaki who has been an elementary
schoolmaster or a tailor is a man for a' that, is quite universally
accepted in the best circles even in this year of grace? _Betty_, now a
grown girl in the cynical stage, revenges herself with feline savagery on
the knight of the shears for the imagined slight of his defection.
Act III. is dated 19? just after peace is declared. The tailor is not (as I
half expected) back in his shop, but a _Brigadier-General Smith, V.C._, is
being invested with the freedom of Sheffingham and is making a spirited
attack on the defences of _Betty_. She puts up enough of a fight to ensure
a good Third Act, and capitulates charmingly to the delight, now, of all
the _Broughton_ household--butler included. I hope Mr. TERRY is right and
that the places taken in this great war game of _General Post_ and the
values registered will have permanence.
I won't deny that the excellent moral of the play goes far to disarm one's
critical faculty. Why not confess that one lost one's heart to the nicest
tailor since _Evan Harrington_? Indeed, Mr. TULLY (always, I find, quite
admirable in characterisation, and that no mere matter of outward trick,
but duly charged with feeling) made just such a decent, lovable, sideless
officer as it has been the pride of the nation of shopkeepers to produce in
the day of challenge. Whoever was it dared cast Mr. MCKINNEL for the part
of a weak kindly old ass of a baronet, without any ruggedness or violence
in his composition? Congratulations to the unknown perspicacious hero and
to Mr. MCKINNEL! Miss MADGE TITHERADGE flapped prettily as a flapper; bit
cleanly and cruelly in her biting mood; surrendered most engagingly. This
is less than justice. She used her queer caressing voice and her reserves
of emotional power to fine effect. Miss LILIAN BRAITHWAITE made her _Lady
Broughton_ nearly credible and less "unsympathetic" than was just. Mr.
DANIELL is new to me. He played one of those difficult foil parts with a
really nice discretion.
The audience was genuinely pleased. It dragged from the author a becomingly
modest acknowledgment. He _did_ owe a great deal to his players, but a
writer of stage plays need not be ashamed of that. T.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Ethel (playing at grown-ups)._ "IS YOUR HUSBAND IN THE WAR,
MRS. BROWN?" _Mabel._ "OH YES, OF COURSE, MRS. SMITH."
_Ethel._ "IS HE IN FRANCE?" _Mabel._ "NO, HE'S IN THE WAR LOAN."]
* * * * *