I commend Sir HERBERT TREE'S obvious desire to do his duty as an
actor-manager and a patriot. His true intent is all for our good; and
he supports his choice of a play in which _Falstaff_ is the central
obsession by a printed quotation from the words of "That Wise Ruler
Queen Elizabeth of England," where she says: "'Tis simple mirth
keepeth high courage alive." But yet he does not convince me that he
has chosen wisely here. For in the first place we are not closely
interested in civil war, as we came near to being in the dim Ulster
period; and patriotism, which it is his object to encourage, is like
to remain unaffected by a play in which our sympathies are fairly
distributed between rebel and royalist. In the second place I cannot
believe that the glorification of drunkenness and braggadocio in the
person of _Falstaff_ can directly assist the cause (which at this
moment needs all the help it can get) of sobriety and self-respect.
[Illustration: _The King_ (Mr. BASIL GILL) reclaims young _Harry_ (Mr.
OWEN NARES) from old _Harry_ (the Devil).]
Having made this protest I have little but praise for the performance
itself, though I think Sir HERBERT TREE'S own lethargy was not wholly
to be excused by the hampering rotundity of his girth; and that all
this deliberate sword-play, where you wait till your enemy has got his
right guard before you arrange a concussion between your weapon and
his, fails to impose itself as an image of War. But it was no fault of
the actors if we suffered a further loss of actuality by the
incredible amount of fine poetry and rhetoric thrown off by military
men at junctures calling for immediate action.
I also venture to make my complaint to the author that the _Falstaff_
scenes are given too great a dominance, diverting us from the main
issue so long that at one time we almost lost count of it; and that
the picture of that fat impostor lying supine in a simulation of death
within a few feet of the fallen body of the heroic _Hotspur_ was
repellent to one's sense of the proprieties.
Mr. MATHESON LANG was a brave figure as _Hotspur_; but, after lately
seeing that other keen actor, Mr. OWEN NARES, in the part of a modern
intellectual discussing the ethics of War, I could not quite get
myself to believe in him as _Prince Hal_. He spoke some of his lines
with a fine ardour, but he was too high-browed and slight of body, and
it was unthinkable that he could ever have persuaded _Hotspur_ to die
at his hands.
Sir HERBERT TREE affected an almost proprietary interest in the
bibulous humours of _Falstaff_, presenting them with an easy and
leisurely restraint; and Mr. BASIL GILL both in form and manner made a
quite good _King_. The minor parts upheld the standard of His
Majesty's; and a pleasant rattling of steel and shimmer of mail ran
through the scenes of active service. Mr. PERCY MACQUOID had seen to
it that the period was there, and Mr. JOSEPH HARKER had taken good
care that the jewelry of SHAKSPEARE'S verse should have the right
setting, though I could easily have mistaken his Gadshill scene for a
section of the Lake Country.