(_By a Grateful Crowd._)
"This 'ere's the larkiest of lays!
Things _do_ begin to move!
'ERBERT and GEORGY let us praise,
And all the powers above.
We've spent a reglar pleasant 'our
Music like this the Mob devour.
Yah! Anerchy is all my heye.
That cornet tootles scrumptiously.
Go it, young GLADSTING! Don't say die
Dear Dook, but 'ave another try.
'Armony makes disorder fly
And Music tunes hus to the sky!
* * * * *
"THE 'KEY-NOTE'-ORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH."
[Illustration: The Dowdy Mrs. Ebbsmith makes it hot for her young man.]
MR. PINERO'S new play at the Garrick Theatre is a series of scenes in
dialogue with only one "situation," which comes at the end of the third
act, and was evidently intended to be utterly unconventional, dreadfully
daring, and thrillingly effective. "Unconventional?" Yes. "Daring?"
Certainly; for to burn a bible might have raised a storm of sibilation.
But why dare so much to effect so little? For at the reading, or during
rehearsal, there must have been very considerable hesitation felt by
everybody, author included, as to the fate of this risky situation--this
"_momentum unde pendet_"--and for which nothing, either in the character
or in the previous history of the heroine, has prepared us. Her earliest
years have been passed in squalor; she has made a miserable marriage;
then she has become a Socialist ranter, and hopes to achieve a triumph
as a Socialist demagogue. Like Maypole Hugh in _Barnaby Rudge_ she would
go about the world shrieking "No property! No property!" and when, in a
weak moment, she consents to temporarily drop her "mission," she goes to
another extreme and comes out in an evening dress--I might say almost
comes out _of_ an evening dress, so egregiously _décolleté_ is it--to
please the peculiar and, apparently, low taste of her lover, who is a
married man,--"which well she knows it," as Mrs. GAMP observes,--but
with whom she is living, and with whom, like GRANT ALLEN'S _The Woman
who did_ (a lady whom in many respects Mr. PINERO'S heroine closely
resembles), and who came to grief in doing it, she intends to continue
living. This man, her paramour, she trusts will be her partner in the
socialistic regeneration of the human race. At the close of the third
act _Mrs. Ebbsmith_, being such as the author of her being has made her,
is presented with a bible, and, in a fit of ungovernable fury, she
pitches it into the stove "with all her might and main"; and then it
suddenly occurs to her that she has committed some terrible crime (more
probably it occurred to the author that _he_ had committed the
unpardonable sin of offending his audience)--and so she shoots out her
arm into a nice, cool-looking stove (suggestive of no sort of danger to
her or the book), and drags out the pocket volume apparently quite as
uninjured as is her own hand at the moment, though this is subsequently
carefully bound up with a white handkerchief in the last act.
Well--that's all. There is _the_ situation. The Key-note-orious _Mrs.
Ebbsmith_ is supposed to repent of her sins against society; and off she
goes to become the companion of the unmarried parson and of the lively
widow his sister. What the result of this arrangement will be is pretty
clear. The Key-note-orious One will soon be the parson's bride; but
"that is another story."
To carry out this drama of inaction, as it is schemed, should occupy
eight persons something under two hours; but it takes thirteen persons
three hours to carry it along. Five of these _dramatis personæ_ are
superfluous; and much time is wasted on dialogues in Italian and French
that could be "faked up" from any conversation-book in several
languages, and evidently only lugged in under the mistaken impression
that thereby a touch of "local colour" is obtained.
As it is the audience wearies of the long speeches, and there is nothing
in the action that can rouse them as there was in _The Second Mrs.
Tanqueray_, a play that Mr. PINERO has not yet equalled, much less
surpassed.
But what is a real pleasure, and what will attract all lovers of good
acting, is, first of all, Mr. FORBES ROBERTSON'S admirable impersonation
of the difficult, unsympathetic _rôle_ of a despicably selfish,
self-conceited, cowardly prig; and, secondly, to a certain extent, the
rendering of the heroine by Mrs. PATRICK CAMPBELL, who, however, does
not come within measurable distance of her former self as _Mrs.
Tanqueray_--her "great stove scene" being about the weakest point in her
performance. But there cannot be a divided opinion as to the perfect
part given to Mr. JOHN HARE, and as to the absolutely perfect manner in
which it is played by this consummate artist in character. All the
scenes in which he appears are admirably conceived by the author, and as
admirably interpreted by the actor.
Mr. HARE'S performance of the _Duke of St. Olpherts_ is a real gem,
ranking among the very best things he has ever done, and I may even add
"going one better." It is on his acting, and on the acting of the scenes
in which he appears, that the ultimate popularity of the piece must
depend. The theatrical stove-cum-book situation may tell with some
audiences better than with others, but it is not an absolute certainty;
while every scene in which the _Duke of St. Olpherts_ takes part, as
long as this character is played by Mr. HARE, is in itself an absolute
isolated triumph. Mr. AUBREY SMITH, as the modern young English
moustached parson, _en voyage_, with his pipe, and bible in his pocket
(is he a _colporteur_ of some Biblical Society, with a percentage on the
sale? otherwise the book is an awkward size to carry about, especially
if he has also a _Murray_ with him), is very true to life, at all events
in manner and appearance; and Miss JEFFREYS, as his sister, who looks
just as if she had walked out of a fashion-plate in _The Gentlewoman_,
or some lady's journal, plays discreetly and with considerable
self-repression. Of course it will remain one of the notable pieces of
the year; but what will keep it green in the memory of playgoers is not
the story, nor its heroine, nor its hero, but the captivating
impersonation of the _Duke of St. Olpherts_ by Mr. JOHN HARE.
[Illustration: Transformation Scene. The Rowdy-Dowdy Mrs. Ebbsmith
fascinates the Dook.]
* * * * *