"The Clever Ones."
I do wish I had been one of the clever ones, for they seemed to be in
Mr. Sutro's confidence and able to penetrate the obscurity of his
motives. At first even I could understand something of the scheme, which
ran (as I thought) like this:--_Wilfrid Callender_, a rich bachelor of
Harrow and Oxford, has a socialist friend, _David Effick_, at whose
meetings he happens to have encountered a Girton girl, _Doris Marrable_
(pretty daughter of a hop-merchant in affluent circumstances), who
affects revolutionary ideals. In order to win the approval of this lady
he represents himself as an anarchist plumber, earning five pounds a
week; and to the horror of her family they become affianced. Having no
sort of intention of keeping up the imposture, even if he could, and
being fearful lest the exposure of his wealth and education would, in
her present state, alienate her affections, he proposes by practical
demonstration to disgust her with the mode of life which she designs to
lead. In collusion with _Effick_ he arranges that he shall invite
_Doris_ to take tea at his friend's attic in Bethnal Green, and reveal
to her the sordid conditions of existence in that quarter.
So far good, and the delightful first Act was rich in promise. Then came
the complexities. There was another girl, _Rose Effick_ (a rich relation
of the socialist), to whom _Callender_ should have been engaged but for
a misunderstanding. It is her business to divert him back to his old
love. You would naturally say that, if it is _Callender's_ object to
disgust _Doris_ with the life of the people, so that she may change her
mind and take him for what he actually is, it will be _Rose's_ object,
since her aim is the frustration of this design, to make Bethnal Green
as attractive as possible, so that _Doris_ will refuse to sacrifice her
ideals when she learns the truth about _Callender_. Yet it looks as if
_Rose_ is playing _Callender's_ game and not her own. At first, it is
true, she tries to make the attic more supportable; imparts a pleasant
flavour to the meal; dismisses the hurdy-gurdies that _Callender_ has
chartered from the Universal Provider. But subsequently she goes
slumming with _Doris_ to such good purpose that the latter turns sick of
the whole thing. Now, you will say, _Callender's_ way is clear; he will
reveal his identity and _Doris_ will be prepared to tolerate his wealth.
On the contrary, Mr. Sutko is not to be defeated by his own
machinations; he means to bring _Callender_ and _Rose_ together; so he
just takes and throws them into one another's arms and consigns _Doris_
to an old admirer whom we have never so much as set eyes on.
[Illustration: A HAIR-AND-TIE ANARCHIST.
_Wilfrid Callender_: Mr. Gerald du Maurier.]
I hope I am more lucid than I seem to myself to be--more lucid, anyhow,
than Mr. Sutro, who has threatened to damage an excellent scheme by
defiance of the first law of drama, even of farce, namely, that the
audience should be permitted to know what the author is after. Nor,
again--though of course he was not asking to be taken seriously--was he
very particular about the probability of some of his characters.
_Doris_, for instance, was required to be too many things at once. A
bluestocking and a _sansculotte_ (not a very usual combination), she was
also a woman of the very latest cry in frocks. Miss Nina Sevening looked
pretty and wore them well, but beyond this she gave us very little help.
_Rose_, too (charmingly played by Miss Marie Löhr), who disguised
herself as a dweller in Bethnal Green by the simple expedient of a
duster pinned over her shoulders--how could Mr. Sutro expect her dainty
skirt and smart white shoes to escape the eye of this "clever" female,
her rival?
All the same, he gave us much matter for mirth, though the Second Act,
which promised so well, was dragged out by interminable trivialities
over the preparations for tea. I wish that authors and actors would
understand how depressing it often is when people on the stage will
insist on keeping things bright and brisk with domestic details.
As for the wit of "the clever ones"--_Doris_ and her mother and her
aunt--I don't know how the first-nighters took it, but when I was there
a great deal of it (when audible) was over the heads of the audience.
They understood all right the humour of things when somebody (not a
clever one) said "Damn," but I wonder how many of them appreciated the
symbolic force of the term _épicier_, or grasped the purport of _Quem
deus vult perdere prius dementat_.
Mr. Sutro owed much to the excellence of his cast. Mr. Gerald du Maurier
was, of course, inimitable; but there were also Miss Florence Haydon,
Miss Mary Brough and Mr. Edmund Gwenn, all delightful in their own
specialised veins of humour--the plaintive, the rich, the uproarious.
But Mr. Holman Clark had not enough scope for his unique qualities.
I hear rumours of a revision, and hope that this means that I shall
receive an invitation to renew a most delightful evening. For my only
real criticism is that Mr. Sutro thought me more intelligent than I
actually am--an error that I always encourage.
* * * * *
"Dusk."
_Account Rendered_, a comedy of some promise, but produced with an
extraordinary inadequacy in the matter of what the programme called "the
decors," has been very quickly withdrawn from the Little Theatre. But
its curtain-raiser, _Dusk_, is to be retained for the revival of
_Magic_.
That is nearly all that I have to say about Mr. Vansittart's "Oriental
Fantasy." It deals with a youthful bride who has just been attached to a
Persian hareem. In the garden at dusk she finds a young English
traveller (who has just told us what a _penchant_ he has for "women,
women, women"--he is very insistent about this), and being caught in
conversation with him is placed by her lord in a sack and consigned to
the deep; but not before she has explained in fluent verse that in the
circumstances this abrupt end to her young career has no terrors for
her. But for this courageous attitude on her part I should have
experienced greater relief when the hero appeared next morning in his
pyjamas and indicated that the regrettable incident was a figment of his
sleeping brain.
I thought I detected some good lines among the Englishman's remarks
(though I did not like his voice), but I prefer to study poetical drama
at leisure before attempting to pass any comment on it. I may add that I
don't suppose that that engaging actor, Mr. Fred Lewis, has ever
previously played the part of a Persian slave with a taste for
philosophic recitation; and I hope he never will again, for, frankly, it
is not his _métier_.