"BIRDS OF A FEATHER."
It is nearly always a good thing for the author of a play to know what he
is after, and if he can get his audience to follow him so much the better.
It is quite possible that Mr. ESMOND had an idea in his head when he wrote
_Birds of a Feather_, but if so he never let me get at it. Up to the very
end I had no conception of what he was trying to illustrate, unless it was
the trite theory that we are the creatures of our environment.
That, at any rate, was how _Constance_ (of "the House of _Ussher_")
explained her vagaries, though I couldn't see why. The daughter of a very
rich Jew, whose Christian wife had run away from him, she was brought up in
great comfort, which included the love of a peer's son, her father's
secretary. It is true that her stern parent would not hear of their union;
but that has no doubt happened to young heiresses before now without
turning them into criminals. With _Constance_ however it seems to have been
different. She had gathered from what she knew of her father's career that
there must be easy ways of making money if you are not too scrupulous, so
she forged his name for a thousand pounds with speculative intent. It was
open to the old man to regard this as an act of filial piety, since it was
an attempt, however crude, to follow the parental tradition; but apparently
forgery had not been one of his foibles and he threatened her with the law
unless she gave up the idea of marrying the secretary, now dismissed from
his service.
Meanwhile she has been carrying on a secret intrigue with that gentleman
(she must have got this from her "Christian" mother), and when her father
comes to know of it he suddenly exhibits an unsuspected gift of
sentimentality ("My baby Con! my baby Con!" he sobs), and, in terror lest
his ewe-lamb's name should be tainted by the breath of scandal, he offers
his late secretary a heavy sum of money to make an honest woman of her. It
sounds a little inconsistent, but of course there may have been a nice
differentiation in the old rogue's mind between a moral and a criminal
offence, in favour of the latter.
As for _Constance_ I have seldom met a less seizable character. If she was
the result of environment there was no visible sign to show how it infected
her. We simply had to take Mr. ESMOND'S word for it. To me the ménage
seemed to be of the most respectable. But, of course, you can always
attribute anything to your surroundings. One environment is vicious and so
drives you to vice; another is virtuous with the same effect. _Constance_
might condemn hers, but it never had a chance with a girl like that.
For myself it was not her viciousness that worried me, it was her
vulgarity; and of this she seemed quite unconscious. Her speech abounded in
second-rate colloquialisms. Was it her environment that taught her to say
dreadful things like "Put that in your pipe and smoke it"? The cheap fun
that she got out of a girl-friend who had made it a rule to pray for
her was the kind of thing you would be sorry to find in a common
boarding-school. And are gentlefolk in the habit of asking a man, as
_Constance_ did, how it was that he ever came to get engaged to such a
woman as the one of his choice? In Bayswater it simply isn't done.
At the end of the First Act, after many trivialities and the waste of
precious time over a description of certain characters that were presently
to appear and endorse it, there was a sudden diversion. The professional
card of a private detective was discovered in an arm-chair. No one seemed
to know how it got there, and, as the curtain chose this moment to fall, we
were left in a state of palpitation, wondering how we were to get through
the interval with our curiosity unappeased. Ultimately it turned out that
the detective was to be employed by _Miss Ussher_ (aunt) to verify her
suspicions with regard to the morals of _Constance_. But I shall never get
you to believe me when I say that the subject was not so much as touched
again till the final Act.
I have spoken of the incongruous stuff of which old _Jacob Ussher's_ heart
was constructed. That strange organ was hard enough to make him give his
daughter away to his secretary in the matter of the forgery; but when it
came to a question of the exposure of her relations with her lover this
same heart was found to be of the consistency of putty.
I hope I shall not seem guilty of _Constance's_ indiscretion if I politely
wonder how it was that so astute a judge as Miss MARIE LÖHR accepted this
play. Actor-managers, of course, have been known to produce indifferent
work for the sake of a good acting part for themselves. If that was her
motive I think she must have imagined a fine subtlety in a character which
was difficult only because it was loosely conceived. If she failed to make
it plausible it was not for want of very adroit handling.
In _Jacob Ussher_ Mr. ESMOND gave himself a most congenial part, in which
he easily surpassed his achievement as author. Mr. TOZER as a slum-parson
was extremely probable with his quiet sincerity. But our chief consolation
came from Miss RACHEL DE SOLLA as the maiden aunt, a reactionary type of
the most confirmed stolidity, with a weakness for diamonds and indigestion.
Miss MARIE LÖHR had many clever things to say, but it didn't matter what
Miss DE SOLLA said; her manner was irresistible.
I must doubt, however, whether the excellent work of the actors will carry
the play to success. Even its title is obscure. The only thing I know about
"birds of a feather" is that they are supposed to "flock together"; and I
have always been given to understand that the adage alludes to the mutual
attraction of similar types. Nobody ever told me that it was meant to
indicate that the sins of the father bird are liable to be reproduced in
his chicken,