Mr. OSCAR WILDE'S _Ideal Husband_, at the Haymarket, is an interesting
play up to the end of the Third Act; and if this climax had been
contrived more artistically, and less conventionally, the situation at
the fall of the curtain in this act would have been a very powerful
one. As it is it is frittered away in conventional dialogue, and the
Fourth Act is decidedly weak. It is throughout excellently played by
Miss JULIA NEILSON and Mr. WALLER in the two principal characters. Mr.
HAWTREY'S performance, in spite of his curious habit of raising his
voice to such a pitch as to suggest his playing to the cab-rank
outside, is admirable. There are here and there sharp bits of dialogue
in it, though scarcely a line in the lighter vein that rises above
farcical comedy.
Mr. BISHOP'S _Earl of Caversham_ is a thoroughly natural piece of
acting, and Mr. BROOKFIELD'S _Phipps_, the Butler, a bit of character
so perfectly rendered that, like _Sam Weller's_ Valentine, it makes
you "wish as there was more in it." Miss FANNY BROUGH, having plenty
to say, but not much worth listening to, does her best with a poor
part. Miss MAUDE MILLETT is nice, and Miss FLORENCE WEST as
unsympathetic as her part was intended to be. That when _Sir Robert
Chiltern_ proposed to retire from Parliamentary life no one suggested
to him that he should take "the Chiltern Hundreds" is evidently an
oversight of the author's, which no doubt he now deeply regrets. The
play, though in sharp dialogue not up to Mr. WILDE'S high
spirits-and-water mark, is an unmistakable success.
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