"CAROLINE."
A BABY, did he but know it, is only happy reaching out from the bath for
the soap. When he gets it, lo! it is mere froth and bitterness. That,
roughly, is Mr. MAUGHAM'S idea in _Caroline_.
If you are to love a woman, for heaven's sake, says he, take care that
she be safe bound beyond your reach. All attainment is dead-sea fruit.
But how is anyone to believe this depressing sort of doctrine when the
woman in question is such an engaging divinity as his _Caroline Ashley_,
interpreted by Miss IRENE VANBRUGH at the very top of her form? The
doctrine, indeed, may be hanged for the nefarious half-truth it is; but
this would still leave you free to appreciate one of the most brilliant
and finished pieces of work which Mr. MAUGHAM has yet done for the
stage. True, it is merely an airy trifle; but it is almost perfect of
its kind.
The action opens on the morning of the announcement in _The Times_ of
the death of _Caroline's_ extremely difficult husband, who has long been
a wanderer seeking spirituous consolations in out-of-the-way places of
the earth. _Robert Oldham_, a quite delightful barrister (Mr. LEONARD
BOYNE; so you will understand the "delightful"), has worshipped
_Caroline_ with an honourable fidelity for ten years, waiting patiently
for the day on which she shall be free. Well, here is the long-desired
day. Affectionate, officious friends come to congratulate each of the
pair before they meet, and each confesses to a curious chilling sense of
dread. When the embarrassing moment of the _téte-à-téte_ arrives,
_Robert_, obviously ill-at-ease and apparently more as a matter of duty
than of eager conviction, suggests that _Caroline_ shall name the day.
She gives him a blank refusal. Both affect dismay at this queer ending
of their long-deferred hopes, but eventually confess, mid peals of their
own happy laughter, their actual relief. So ends the first chapter.
A later hour of the same day finds our heroine on her sofa, languid from
the morning's emotions, and indulging in the luxury of not feeling at
all well. Her world is crumbling. She cannot do without a slave, and
_Robert_ can no longer fill quite the old _rôle_. Clearly a matter for
counsel with her physician and friend, _Dr. Cornish_ (Mr. DION
BOUCICAULT), who pleasantly diagnoses middle-age and prescribes a young
adorer, than which no advice could be more nicely calculated to restore
her lost feeling of queenly complacency. She sends for young _Rex
Cunningham_ (Mr. MARTIN LEWIS), a morbid egoist, who nourishes a
hopeless passion for her (and others), being well aware of the paramount
claims of _Robert_. She contrives to let him know that she is free, and
the youth, whose pet hobby is hopeless passion, at once sheers off in
alarm. _Caroline_ is learning--is beginning to understand the dark
philosophy of Mr. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. In despair she again turns to
_Robert_. They become engaged and promptly begin quarrelling about their
houses. He objects to her Futurist bathroom; she to his, which is so
like a tube station that she would bathe in constant apprehension of the
sudden appearance of a young man demanding tickets. _Robert_ begins to
assert his masculine rights to control these and sundry matters. She
realises (oh, venerable gag of the cynics!) that the fetters which would
unite their bodies would put a barrier between their souls. The
engagement is by mutual consent declared off.
Realising, however, in Chapter III., that she needs _Robert's_ devotion
more than anything else, she conceives a plot. _Dr. Cornish_ makes an
opportune call, not this time as a doctor, but as a whole-hearted
admirer. With just such an one for my husband, thinks _Caroline_,
_Robert_ could again assume his accustomed part of loyal friend and
incense-bearer. She accordingly proposes. Appreciating the difficulty of
directly refusing without discourtesy, he temporises and appears to fall
in with her suggestion that he shall announce their engagement to
_Robert_ and her interfering friends, who are promptly telephoned for to
hear an interesting statement. But _Cornish_ proves himself a WOLFF in
sheep's clothing. Instead of announcing the engagement he asserts that
he has just seen _Stephen Ashley_, the husband: a lie which obtains
credence with the others because of the dead man's amiable habit of
occasionally putting about a rumour of his decease. _Caroline_, with
superb presence of mind, seeing a glorious way out of a dilemma, adopts
the lie, contrives a more or less plausible explanation, and thus
establishes the _status quo ante_--the grass widow with the faithful and
contented adorer.
The play, whose only flaw was a certain rather upsetting ambiguity
(whether accidental or designed I could not quite gather) in the last
few sentences before the curtain fell, was interpreted with a very fine
intelligence. Miss IRENE VANBRUGH'S superbly trained talent showed
itself in an astonishing range of moods tethered in a plausible unity of
conception. Mr. BOYNE, who is just coming into his own, scored bull
after bull. Perhaps he didn't make _Oldham_ quite the Englishman that
the author (I should say) designed, but rather an Irishman of that
delightfully faint flavour which is so entirely attractive. Miss LILLAH
MACARTHY, as _Maude Fulton_, a well-preserved bachelor in the most
bizarre modern mode, also a dexterous liar and officious matchmaker,
played with her head in her most accomplished manner and gave full value
in the general scheme to a character which the author made a person when
he might have been content with a peg. Mr. DION BOUCICAULT'S physician
was as bland a humbug as ever coined guineas in Mayfair. Mr. MARTIN
LEWIS, as a profoundly silly ass, played a difficult hand without fault.
Miss NINA SEVENING, as a consoler of handsome men in trouble, and Miss
FLORENCE LLOYD, as _Caroline's_ maid, competently rounded off in
subsidiary _rôles_ the work of the principals.
Yes, undoubtedly a brilliant performance.