WHEN the history of the drama in England during the last twenty years
of the nineteenth century comes to be written, the episode of the
management of the Legitimate Theatre by Mrs. Mowbray will doubtless be
amply treated from the standpoint of art, and the historian will, it may
be confidently expected, lament the want of appreciation on the part
of the public for the Shakespearian drama, to which the closing of the
Legitimate Theatre was due.
There were a considerable number of persons, however, who showed a
readiness to assert that the management of the Legitimate by Mrs.
Mowbray should be looked upon as a purely--only purely was not the word
they used--social incident, having no basis whatever in art. It
failed, they said, not because the people of England had ceased to
love Shakespeare, but because Mr. Archie Brown had ceased to love Mrs.
Mowbray.
However this may be, there were also people who said that the Legitimate
Theatre under the management of Mrs. Mowbray could not have been so
great a financial failure, after all; for Mrs. Mowbray, when her
season came to an end, wore as expensive dresses as ever, and drove as
expensive horses as ever; and as everyone who had been associated with
the enterprise had been paid--some people said overpaid--the natural
assumption was that Shakespeare on the stage was not so abhorrent to the
people of England as was generally supposed.
The people who took this view of the matter were people who had never
heard the name of Mr. Archie Brown--people who regarded Mrs. Mowbray
as a self-sacrificing lady who had so enthusiastic a desire to make the
public acquainted with the beauties of Shakespeare, that she was quite
content to spend her own fortune (wherever that came from) in producing
“Cymbeline” and other masterpieces at the Legitimate.
There were other people who said that Archie Brown was a young ass.
There were others who said that Mrs. Mowbray was a harpy.
There were others still--they were mostly men--who said that Mrs.
Mowbray was the handsomest woman in England.
The bitterest--they were mostly women--said that she was both handsome
and a harpy.
The truth regarding the difficult question of the Legitimate Theatre was
gathered by Harold Wynne, as he swallowed his claret and ate his olives
at the dining table at Archie Birown’s rooms in Piccadilly.
He perceived from what Archie told him, that Archie had a genuine
enthusiasm in the cause of Shakespeare. How he had acquired it, he might
have had considerable difficulty in explaining. He also gathered that
Mrs. Mowbray cared very little for Shakespeare except as a medium for
impressing upon the public the fact--she believed it to be a fact--that
Mrs. Mowbray was the most beautiful woman in England.
“Cymbeline” had, she considered, been written in the prophetic instinct,
which the author so frequently manifested, that one day a woman with
such shapely limbs as Mrs. Mowbray undoubtedly possessed, might desire
to exhibit them to the public of this grand old England of Shakespeare’s
and ours.
Mrs. Mowbray was probably the most expensive taste that any man in
England could entertain.
All this Harold gathered from the account of the theatrical enterprise,
as communicated to him by Archie after dinner.
And the best of it all was, Archie assured him, that no human being
could say a word against the character of Mrs. Mowbray.
“I never heard a word against the character of her frocks,” said Harold.
“It’s a big thing, the management of the Legitimate,” said Archie,
gravely.
“No doubt; even when it’s managed, shall we say, legitimately?” said
Harold.
“I feel the responsibility, I can tell you,” said Archie. “Shakespeare
has never been given a proper chance in England; and although she’s a
year or two older than me, yet on the box seat of my coach she doesn’t
look a day over twenty-two--just when a woman is at her best, Harry.
What I want to know is, shall it be said of us that Shakespeare--the
immortal Shakespeare, mind you--Stratford upon Avon, you know--”
“I believe I have his late address,” said Harold.
“That’s all right. But what I want to know is, shall it be said that
we are willing to throw our Shakespeare overboard? In the scene in the
front of the cave she is particularly fine.”
In an instant Harold’s thoughts were carried back to a certain scene
in front of a cave on a moonlight night; and for him the roar of life
through Piccadilly was changed to the roar of the Atlantic. His thoughts
remained far away while Archie talked gravely of building himself a
monument by his revival of “Cymbeline”, with which the Legitimate had
been opened by Mrs. Mowbray. Of course, the thing hadn’t begun to pay
yet, he explained. Everyone knew that the Bicycle had ruined theatrical
business in London; but the Legitimate could fight even the Bicycle, and
when the public had the beauty of Mrs. Mowbray properly impressed upon
them, Shakespeare would certainly obtain that recognition which he
deserves from England. Were Englishmen proud of Shakespeare, or were
they not? that was what Archie wished very much to know. If the people
of your so-called British Islands wish to throw Shakespeare overboard,
just let them say so. But if they threw him over, the responsibility
would rest with them; Mrs. Mowbray would still be the handsomest woman
in England. At any rate, “Cymbeline” at the Legitimate would be a
monument.
“As a lighthouse is a monument,” said Harold, coming back from the Irish
lough to Piccadilly.
“I knew you’d agree with me,” said Archie. “You know that I’ve always
had a great respect for your opinion, Harry. I don’t object so much as
some tarty chips to your dad. I wish he’d see Mrs. Mowbray. There’s no
vet. whose opinion I’d sooner take on the subject than his. He’d find
her all right.”
Harold looked at the young man whose plain features--visible when he did
not smile too broadly--displayed the enthusiasm that possessed him when
he was fancying that his devotion to the beauty of Mrs. Mowbray was a
true devotion to Shakespeare. Archie Brown, he was well aware, was very
imperfectly educated.
He was not, however, much worse than the general run of people. Like
them he knew only enough of Shakespeare to be able to misquote him now
and again; and, like them, he believed that. Darwinism meant nothing
more than that men had once been monkeys.
Harold looked at Archie, and felt that Mrs. Mowbray was a fortunate woman
in having met with him. The monument was being raised, Harold felt; and
he was right. The management of the Legitimate-Theatre was a memorial to
Vanity working heart, and soul with Ignorance to the praise and glory of
Shakespeare.