"The Dangerous Age."
[Illustration: _Distracted Mother (at the top of her voice, outside sick
son's room)._ "He won't die! Tell me he won't die!"
_Author of Play._ "No, he won't die, because this is a 'happy ending'
play, but the noise that goes on outside his room would kill him in
ordinary life."
_Betty Dunbar_ Miss Eva Moore.
_Sir Egbert Englefield_ Mr. H. V. Esmond.]
When there is a good deal of talk on the stage about a certain
character, who however remains "off" throughout the play and gives you
no chance to discover for yourself what he is like, then I have an
instinctive distrust of him. If his name is as bad as _Cecil_ he is
practically doomed. _Betty Dunbar_, widow, ran away from her rich
sister's house and spent a night in London with such a _Cecil_. _Betty_
had arrived at the dangerous age of forty, and was temporarily and
ridiculously in love with this young bounder (as I felt him to be) of
twenty-two. But the fact that, at the very time when she was thus making
a fool of herself in London, her younger son, _Jack_, was falling off a
tree and nearly killing himself in the country brought her to her
senses. When she returned to the country to find _Jack_ at death's door,
her love for _Cecil_ died and she could only think of him with hatred.
Now I can remember wondering, when I read _The Vicar of Wakefield_ at an
early and innocent age, why _Dr. Primrose_ was so anxious that his
daughter _Olivia_ should be married to the beast with whom she had
eloped, when it would be so much better for her if _Thornhill_ left her
(as he was willing to do) and she returned unmarried to her father. I am
older now, and I know that in the good Vicar's opinion only thus could
his daughter's "honour" be "preserved." But the world is also older now,
and perhaps the oldest person in it is the woman suffragist--such a one,
for instance, as _Betty's_ elder sister, _Ethel_, who carried copies of
_Votes for Women_ about with her when she strolled through the home
park. That _Ethel_ should share _Dr. Primrose's_ ingenuous views on this
matter is unbelievable--by me, but not by the author. For she insisted,
under threat of cutting off supplies, that _Betty_ should marry _Cecil_,
and (so to speak) become a lady again. _Betty_ wisely refused, which
left the way clear for _Sir Egbert Englefield_, and so brought down the
curtain. I haven't mentioned _Sir Egbert_ before, but he was there or
thereabouts all the time, and being in the flesh Mr. H. V. Esmond,
author of the play, it was obvious that he would have the pull over any
unseen _Cecil_ in the final arrangement of partners.
Although _Ethel_ appears to be impossible, and the other characters
mostly conventional, _The Dangerous Age_ makes a very charming
entertainment at the Vaudeville, a patchwork of humour and pathos
ingeniously woven together; of which the humour was as fresh and jolly
as anything I have heard on the stage, and the pathos put me in greater
danger of being caught "blubbering like a seal" than I have ever been
before. It is to Masters Reginald Grasdorff and Roy Royston that I owe
my special thanks. Two more delightful boys on the stage cannot be
imagined. Indeed I was at least as sorry as _Betty_ when _Jack_ fell off
his tree, for I knew then that I should not see Master Roy again that
evening. Fortunately Reginald remained, and acted with great skill a
part which suddenly became serious. But I wish Osborne boys on the stage
wouldn't wear their uniforms in the holidays when they climb trees. It
emphasizes their Osbirth (if I may use the word) at the expense of their
boyishness. Miss Eva Moore and Mr. Esmond were excellent, the latter
playing a perfect Wyndham part without the Wyndham mannerisms. Mr.
Leslie Banks, representing an entirely incredible person, was exactly
like somebody I knew; a feat, it seems to me, of some skill.