MRS. WOOD can't expect to be always the lucky possessor of a _Dandy
Dick_, nor can Mr. PINERO hope always to be up to that really good
farcical standard. The good PINERO has nodded over this. _The Cabinet
Minister_ is an excellent title thrown away. The Cabinet Minister
himself, Mr. ARTHUR CECIL, in his official costume, playing the flute,
is as burlesque as the General in full uniform, in Mr. GILBERT'S
"_Wedding March_," sitting with his feet in hot-water. The married boy
and girl, with their doll baby and irritatingly unreal quarrels,
reminded me of the boy-and-girl lovers in _Brantingham Hall_. The mother
of _The Macphail_--the wooden Scotch figure (represented by Mr. B.
THOMAS) still to be seen at the door of small tobacconists,--is a
Helen-Macgregorish bore, curiously suggestive of what Mr. RIGHTON might
look like in petticoats. Mrs. JOHN WOOD'S part is a very trying one, and
not what the public expect from her.
[Illustration: Court in the Act; or, Mag-Pi-nero flying to a Wood with a
few leaves from the Gilbertum Topsyturveycum Bookum.]
Though the piece begins fairly well, yet it is dull until Mr. WEEDON
GROSSMITH, as _Joseph Lebanon_, comes on the scene in the Second Act,
when everyone begins to be amused, and ends by being disappointed.
_Joseph_ remains the hero of the situation, and, cad as he is, the
behaviour of the ladies and gentlemen towards him reduces them to his
level, so that, in spite of its being a farce, we begin to pity him as
we pity Mr. GUTHRIE'S _Pariah_, and as those who remember THEODORE
HOOK'S novel have pitied that wretched little cad, _Jack Brag_. The part
is not equal to _Aunt Jack's_ Solicitor, and had Mr. GROSSMITH, by the
kind permission of Mr. PINERO, departed from the conventional Adelphi
and Drury Lane type of comic Hebraic money-lender, he would have done
better. The piece is played with the burlesque earnestness that
characterised the first performances of _Engaged_ at the Haymarket,
which piece the Scotch accent recalls to the playgoer's memory. No one
can possibly feel any interest in the lovers.
As a rule Mr. PINERO'S stage-management is simple and effective: but
here the design is confused and the result is an appearance of restless
uncertainty. Drumdurris Castle seems to be a lunatic asylum, of which
the principal inmates are two elderly female patients, one, like a
twopence-coloured plate of some ancient Scotch heroine, with a craze
about Scotland, and the other mad on saying "Fal-lal," and screaming out
something about "motives." If eight of the characters were cut out,
"they'd none of 'em be missed," and if the play were compressed into one
Act, it would contain the essence of all that was worth retaining, and,
with a few songs and dances, might make an attractive _lever de rideau_
or "laughable farce to finish," before, or after, a revival of _Dandy
Dick_.