"A Kiss for Cinderella."
No well-fed person need ever quite expect to understand one of Sir J. M.
BARRIE'S mystery plays at a single sitting. That's one of his best
trumps, of course. But it always seems to me that, like so many writers
of genius, he never quite knows what are his best and what his poorest
things, and just tosses them to us to sort out for ourselves. In this
new instance, to work off a piece of strictly professional criticism, it
is clear that both prologue and epilogue are much too protracted. It is
a sound dramatic canon, which not even our most brilliant chartered
libertine of stage-land can flout with impunity, not to keep your
audience in too long a suspense while preparing your salient theme, nor,
after quickening their interest and firing their imagination, to chill
with the obvious or distract with the irrelevant.
Sir JAMES'S _Cinderella_ is maid-of-all-work to the housekeeper of a
retired humourist turned painter (Mr. O. B. CLARENCE), a vague peppery
sentimental old bachelor with an ideal of which a full-sized cast of the
"Venus di Milo" stands for symbol in his studio. _Cinderella_ is dumpy
and plain (that is the idea which Miss HILDA TREVELYAN tries loyally but
without much success to suggest to us), but she has the tiniest possible
feet. Regretfully admitting the superiority of Venus's "uppers" she
takes heart of grace, knowing from history how important in princely
eyes is her own particular endowment. She is always asking odd
questions, such as "why doctors ask you to say ninety-nine" and tailors
measuring gentlemen's legs call out "42-6; 38-7." She also has a queer
_penchant_ for stealing boards, betrays some connection with a firm,
Celeste et Cie. of Bond Street, and knows some German words. Which
concatenation of facts justifies the old bachelor in consulting a
friendly policeman (Mr. GERALD DU MAURIER). Bond Street turns out to be
a mean street, Celeste et Cie the name under which _Cinderella_ trades,
dealing in medical treatment, shaves, friendly counsel or dressmaking
all at a penny fee. Also she keeps in a Wendyish sort of way a _crêche_
for orphan babes in boxes evidently made of the borrowed boards.
Our policeman, coming to work up his case, loses his heart. But
_Cinderella's_ mind is preoccupied with her ball. Ill from overwork and
underfeeding, she wanders into the street, falls faint--and dreams her
ball. Whereupon our authentic magician, coming to his own, lifts a
curtain of her queer little mind and gives us an all too short glimpse
of the state function, with an _h_-dropping, strap-hanging King and
Queen out of a pack of cards; their disdainful Prince, who is none
other, of course, than our policeman done into a bewigged _Monsieur
Beaucaire_; a moody and peremptory Peer, _Lord Times_; the Censor
(black-visored, with an axe); a grotesquely informal Lord Mayor; a bevy
of preposterous revue beauties with their caps set at the Prince,
against an all-gold background with the orphans babbling in a royal box
above the throne. Of course you have the heroine's belated entry, her
triumph and her abrupt flight, and the voice of the distraught Prince
crying after her, which is of course the voice of her own policeman, who
finds her and takes her to hospital. Then convalescence in a cottage
(alleged, really a palace) by the sea and the final declaration of
"romantical" policeman's love.
Sir JAMES banked heavily on Miss HILDA TREVELYAN as his _Cinderella_.
The English tradition of manufacturing parts to fit your players,
instead of training players to create your parts, was never more
shrewdly followed. She was most adorable in the exquisite business of
arranging the offer of her policeman's hand. Mr. DU MAURIER'S bobby was
as delightfully honest, plain-witted, heavy-booted and friendly a fellow
as ever held up a bus or convoyed a covey of children across a street.
But as the Prince, who was "so blasted particular," he had a chance of
showing that rare talent for the grotesque which no part has given him
since his inimitable _Captain Hook_, I wish indeed we could see more of
him in this rich vein. _Mr. Clarence_ was the vague old gentleman (or
the vague old gentleman, _Mr. Clarence_) to the life. Miss HENRIETTA
WATSON, as the hospital doctor, bullied her patients and probationers in
the approved manner of medical autocrats of the gentler sex. An
excellent _Lord Mayor_ (Mr. LISTON LYLE), an irrepressible wounded Tommy
by Mr. A. E. GEORGE and an aristocratic probationer by Miss ELIZABETH
POLLOCK, were notable performances. Many others also ran--and ran well.
The piece should do the same.