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"PETER IBBETSON."
That incorrigible romanticist, GEORGE DU MAURIER of happy memory, was so
transparently sincere as to be disarming. No use telling him "life's not
like that." "That's just it," he'd say, and get on with his pleasant
illusions. _Peter Ibbetson_ is certainly not tuned to the moods of this
decade, but it would be a pity if we all became too sophisticated to enjoy
such occasional excursions into the land of almost-grown-up make-believe.
If life doesn't give you what you want, then "cross your legs, put your
hands behind your head," go to sleep and live a dream-life of your own
devising--that is the theme. The bare essentials of the story are that the
beloved _Mimsy_ of _Peter's_ happy childhood becomes the wife of a
distinctly unfaithful duke; while _Peter_ finds himself in prison for
killing his quite gratuitously wicked uncle, and for forty years reprieved
convict and deceived duchess meet in dreams till her death divides and his
again unites them.
It is a considerable tribute to both author and adapter (the late JOHN
RAPHAEL) that their work should, at the height of the barking season, hold
an audience silent and apparently enthralled, in spite of the handicap
that, in order to make the story in any degree intelligible, much time had
to be given to more or less tedious explanations.
I will not pretend that the motives of the characters were clear or that
(for me) the phantasy quite passed the test of being translated from the
medium of the written word into that of canvas, gauze and costumed players,
with those scufflings of dim figures in the semi-darkness and that furtive
and by no means noiseless zeal of scene-shifters; or, again, that I was
much attracted by a picture of the life after death, in which opera-going
(please _cf._ Mr. VALE OWEN) figured so prominently. Indeed I think that
the play would be better if it ended with the death of the dreamers and did
not attempt that hazardous last passage.
But certainly there were quite admirable tableaux and some very intelligent
individual playing--in contrast with the team-work of (particularly) the
First Act, which was ragged and amateurish.
Mr. BASIL RATHBONE'S _Peter_ was an effective study, avoiding Scylla of the
commonplace and Charybdis of the mawkish--no mean feat. A young man with a
future, I dare hazard; with a gift of clear utterance, and sensibility and
a useful figure.
It is a good deal to say that Miss CONSTANCE COLLIER so contrived her
_Duchess of Towers_ as to make us understand _Peter's_ worship.
Miss JESSIE BATEMAN'S _Mrs. Deane_ seemed to me an exceedingly competent
piece of work, and Mr. GILBERT HARE thoroughly enjoyed every mouthful of
_Colonel Ibbetson's_ wickedness, and made us share his appreciation. And
you couldn't accuse him of over-playing, though he certainly looked too bad
to be true.
Mr. WILLIAM BURCHILL'S little sketch of an old French officer was almost
too poignant.
Why the landlord of the _Tête Noir_ was got up to resemble Mr. WILL EVANS
so closely is a deep matter I could not fathom, and, if ever I kill my
uncle, may Fate send me a less rhetorical chaplain than Mr. CYRIL SWORDER!