"DEAR BRUTUS."
There are great ways of borrowing, as EMERSON said, and in his new
Fantasy Sir JAMES BARRIE has given us a very charming variation on
_A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (with echoes of _Peter Pan_ and _The
Admirable Crichton_). Certainly I got far more fun out of his deluded
lovers in the Magic Wood than I ever extracted from the comedy of
errors which occurred between the ladies and gentlemen of the Court
of _Theseus_.
In _Dear Brutus_ the contrast between real life and the life of
Magicland is sharply accentuated by the fact that there is not a
separate set of characters for each; the same men and women figure in
both, making abrupt transitions from one to the other and back again.
We have a house party of actual humans (not too obtrusively actual),
most of whom, including the butler, imagine that if they could have a
Second Chance in life they would not make such a mess of it as they
did with the First. One of them thinks he would never have taken to
drink and lost his self-respect and his wife's love if he had only had
a child; one that he would not have become a pilferer if he had stuck
to the City; others that they would have done better to have married
Somebody Else. Well, they are all whisked off into the Magic Wood, and
there they get their Second Chance. The pilferer becomes a successful
tradesman in a large and questionable way; the tippler finds himself
sober and attended by the daughter of his heart's desire; various
married folk get re-sorted; and so forth.
The moral purpose (if any) of the author, as conveyed to us through
the mouth of the leading humourist of the party, is to show that a
man's nature would remain the same even if he got a Second Chance.
Unfortunately--but what can you expect in the realm of Magic?--the
scheme does not work out with any logical consistency. It is true
that the philanderer and the pilfering butler show little promise of
making anything out of their Second Chance; but, on the other hand,
the childless tippler seems to have gone reformation and recovered
his wife's regard; and if I rightly interpret certain delicate
indications, they propose to have a pearl of a daughter later on. Also
the dainty and supercilious _Lady Caroline_, who in the wood becomes
enamoured of the butler-turned-plutocrat (_cf. Titania_ and _Bottom_)
and subsequently returns to her sniffiness, cannot be said to have
lost much by failing to utilise her Second Chance.
However, one might never have troubled about Sir JAMES'S logic if he
had not declared his moral purpose in set terms. I suppose he had to
explain his title, which was sufficiently obscure. It comes, as Mr.
SOTHERN kindly informed us, from the lines:--
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves."
_Brutus_, in fact, is the famous general to whom certain things were
caviare. He is the typical man in the audience, to whom Sir JAMES
says: "You, too, Brutus; I'm talking at you."
[Illustration: IN AND OUT OF THE WOOD.
_Mr. Purdie_ MR. SAM SOTHERN.
_Mr. Coade_ MR. NORMAN FORBES.
_Mr. Dearth_ MR. GERALD DU MAURIER.]
Happily (for my taste, anyhow) the humour of the play dominates its
sentiment. And where the sentiment of the child _Margaret_ threatens
to overstrain itself we had always the healthy antidote of Mr. DU
MAURIER'S practical methods to correct its tendency to cloy. He was
extraordinarily good both as himself and, for a rare change, as
somebody quite different. Miss FAITH CELLI as his daughter--a sort of
_Peter Pan_ girl who does grow up, far too tall--was delightful in the
true BARRIE manner. It was a pity--but that was not her fault--that
she had to end her long and difficult scene on rather a false note.
I am almost certain that no child (outside a BARRIE play), who is
left alone in a Magic Wood, scared out of her life, would cry aloud,
"Daddy, daddy, I don't want to be a Might-have-been." The sentiment of
the words was, of course, part of the scheme, but it was not for her
to say them.
Mr. NORMAN FORBES, in the Wood, was an elderly piping faun and
performed with astonishing agility a sword-dance over a stick crossed
with his whistle. Elsewhere as _Mr. Coade_ he played very engagingly
the part of the only character who had made such good use of his First
Chance that he really didn't need a Second. Both in name and nature he
brought to mind the late Mr. CHOATE, who gallantly declared that if he
had not been what he was he would have liked to be his wife's second
husband. And no wonder that _Mr. Coade_ wanted nothing better than to
remain attached to so adorable a creature as his wife, played with a
delightful homeliness by Miss MAUDE MILLETT, who has lost nothing of
that charm to which, with _Mr. Coade_, we retain the most faithful
devotion.
Mr. WILL WEST was admirable as a _Crichton_ gone wrong; and Mr.
SOTHERN, as the philanderer _Purdie_, took all his Chances of humour,
and they were many, with the greatest aplomb. They included some very
pleasant satire on stage manners. I have only to mention the names
of Miss HILDA MOORE, Miss JESSIE BATEMAN, Miss DORIS LYTTON and Miss
LYDIA BILBROOKE for you to understand how excellent a cast it was,
both for wit and grace.
Finally, Mr. ARTHUR HATHERTON, as _Lob_, the host of the party, a kind
of hoary old _Puck_ who had a _penchant_ for filling his house every
Midsummer Eve with people who wanted a Second Chance, interpreted Sir
JAMES'S whimsical fancy to the very top of freakishness.
I hope, but doubtfully, that there are enough Dear Brutuses in London
(so many aliens have lately fled) to do justice to BARRIE at his best.