"Pen."
During one of the intervals which served so well to eke out the brief
two hours of Mr. VACHELL's new "comedy," and were quite as good as many
things in the play, I allowed my mind--an absolute blank--to dwell upon
certain arresting features in the stage curtain of the St. James's
Theatre. In the centre, imposed upon a design whose significance I do
not pretend to penetrate, is a gigantic wreath encircling a monogram of
the magic initials, G. A., which are surmounted by something which I
took to be an heraldic top-hat. This headpiece is in turn surmounted by
an heraldic eagle--the ordinary arrangement by which the helmet appears
above the coat-of-arms being thus reversed. The central design is
flanked on each side by two other wreaths, massive but subordinate.
Within the sinister wreath is enshrined in Greek capitals the letters
ALEX, and within the dexter wreath the letters ANDROS. "Reading from
left to right" we have here the historic name of the Macedonian monarch.
I cannot account for the Greek form of the name on the ground that the
St. James's Theatre is the home of the Classical Drama, for the themes
of its plays seldom go back beyond the later decades of the 19th century
A.D., and I can only conclude that it is meant to indicate that the
conquests of Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER'S company resemble those of the famous
phalanx of his namesake, the Great.
Most theatres have an atmosphere of their own, and it would be hard to
recall any play at the St. James's that has been less in keeping with
the local climate than this comedy, so described, of Mr. VACHELL'S. On
the score of impropriety and improbability it might in the old days have
appealed to the Criterion management; but its lack of broad humour must
have negatived these advantages. In any case Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER'S
house was no place for a farce so out of harmony with Macedonian
methods.
Almost its solitary interest lay in the doubt, maintained to the last
moment, as to which of its many fatuous males would turn out to be the
hero--meaning by hero the chosen husband of the heroine, for none of
them had any personal claim to the title. Indeed, the choice ultimately
fell upon the one that had the least distinctive personality of all, his
disguise being kept up by a kind of protective colourlessness.
But for Miss ELLIS JEFFREYS, who played the aunt of the preposterous
_Lady Pen_ with a courage worthy of a better cause, and extracted from
the play such humour as it held for her, matters would have gone badly
for those of us who have been accustomed to look to Mr. VACHELL for
entertainment. Mr. ALLAN AYNESWORTH, as the heroine's guardian, had no
difficulty in transmitting pleasantly enough his mild share of the fun.
Miss MARIE HEMINGWAY needed all her prettiness to make up for the
futility of her part. And I was really sorry that so sound an actor as
Mr. DAWSON MILWARD should have had such ineffective stuff put into his
mouth.
Far the funniest thing about the play was the fact that so clever and
experienced a writer should have made it. Perhaps the compliments I have
paid to my friend Mr. VACHELL in these columns have given me the right
to beg him not to take advantage of his many recent successes and palm
off on the public just any kind of banality, For these are days when
pens (with or without a big P) must be pretty good if they are to
compete with the sword.
With this appeal (and with a silent prayer that the play may not come by
a natural death in time for my homily to serve as a funeral
appreciation) I hasten to conclude, hoping that it will find, him in the
pink (as they say) of a blushful remorse; and, anyhow, I remain,
His sincerely, O. S.
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