As I have already conveyed, in a short note last week, the first night of
the revival of _Diplomacy_, viz., Saturday, Feb. 18th, will be for ever
memorable in the annals of the English stage in general, and in the
reminiscences of Mr. JOHN HARE in particular, whenever he may choose to
give them to the public. It will also afford matter for a brilliant chapter
in the second or third series of Mr. and Mrs. BANCROFT'S _On and Off the
Stage_. A great night, too, for the eminent adapters Messrs. SCOTT and
STEPHENSON, once known as "the Brothers ROWE," who rowed in the same boat.
Never, at any time, has this version of the French play been so well cast
as it is now at Garrick Theatre, though nervousness told on all the actors,
especially on the elder ones, except, apparently, Mrs. BANCROFT, in whose
performance there was hardly any trace of it, though once she nearly missed
her cue while resting awhile at the back of the stage.
The part of _Lady Henry Fairfax_ has literally nothing whatever to do with
the plot, and were it not played as it is now, and played so capitally by
Mrs. BANCROFT, it would be better, for an English audience at least, if
omitted entirely, or reduced to a few appropriate lines in pleasant places.
An English audience wants the story, when once begun, to go on without any
break or interruption; and indeed, but for dramatic effect, an English
audience is inclined to resent even the division of a piece into Acts,
unless such arrangement is evidently necessitated by some heavy mechanical
change of scenery.
So our audiences would decidedly prefer to have the _roles_ of _Lady Henry_
and _The Marquise de Rio Zares_ (with her wearisome iteration about "Don
ALVA," and played with rather too much accentuation by Lady MONCKTON)
reduced to the smallest possible algebraic expression. Mr. BANCROFT was the
same _Count Orloff_ as he was years ago on the little stage of the old
Prince of Wales's Theatre; his action more deliberate than when he was
younger and more impetuous; his pauses for meditation longer by a thought
or so than of yore; while in his tone and manner there was just a
delicately-deepened colouring of the genuine original Bancroftian "Old
Master." To Mr. BANCROFT, resuscitating our old courtly friend _Count
Orloff_ (now _Count Orl-on-again_), I would address the once well-known
line from "_Woodman, spare that Tree_"--
"Touch not a single _bow_!"
[Illustration: "Three Men in a boat."]
ARTHUR CECIL, too, as _Baron Stein_, excellent, _cela va sans dire_; yet,
somehow, his effects now seem to me to be laid on with too broad a brush,
especially in the scene of his last appearance, where he makes a sly, and,
for the _Baron Stein_, a rather over-elaborated and farcical attempt to
recapture the letter he has just given up. FORBES ROBERTSON is good from
first to last as the very weak-knee'd _Julian Beauelere_, sufficiently
emotional in the strong situations, and never better than when the
character itself is at its weakest; that is, in the one great scene with
his wife.
The _Algie Fairfax_, of Mr. GILBERT HARE, was natural where the authors
have allowed him to be natural, and best, therefore, in the last Act, where
he has become a responsible personage in a diplomatic office. The
"three-men-in-a-difficulty" scene went as well as ever, though, on the
whole, played far too slowly, and with so much "suppressed force," that the
celebrated "_Monsieur! a vos ordres!_" when _Orloff_ suddenly breaks out
into "the language of diplomacy," did not electrify the house. On the
contrary, the audience took it very quietly, awaiting with some curiosity
the interference of _Henry Beauclerc_. And it was at this point that the
services of Mr. JOHN HARE in this character were invaluable. Never had his
crisp incisive style produced more marked effect. It is a pity that in the
Third Act, which being the weak point of the play requires all the strength
of the actor to be seriously employed, Mr. HARE should have given a very
light comedy, nay, even a farcical touch to his treatment of the "business"
of sniffing the perfume--when he is literally "on the scent"--and to the
momentous situation of his interview with _Zicka_. "_Maintenant a nos
deux!_" Odd that, in his treatment of the strength of the scent, SARDOU
should have shown the feebleness of his methods. Yet so it is. The play, at
this point, being practically played out, he carelessly chucks the puppets
into a corner. He has made his great scenes, and there's an end of it; let
the weakest go to the wall.
[Illustration: DUET--_Baron Cecil Stein and Lady Henry Bancroft Fairfax_
(_with original model of Strasbourg Clock_)--"Here we are again!"]
[Illustration: SCENT ZICKA--from a (guilt)-stained-glass Russian window.]
Last of all to be mentioned with unstinted praise is Miss KATE RORKE. It is
as well to remember throughout that we are witnessing a play of
semi-French, not purely domestic English life, and the essence of the play
could not be adapted to ordinary English notions. _Julian Beauclerc_, for
example, in England, would never have challenged _Count Orloff_; he might
have had "a deuce of a row with him"; _et voila tout_. _Dora_, as a young
Irish girl, and not, as she is here, a half-breed, would never have
threatened to suicide herself out of the window, though all else she, as a
not particularly well-educated, but certainly very impulsive girl, might
probably have done. Her great scene, where she bangs her fists against the
looked doors, shrieking to her husband to return--an effect to be led up to
and made within the space of a minute--was, if I may be allowed to say so,
without being suspected of exaggeration, "just perfect." That some
considerable time will elapse before the enthusiasm aroused by this revival
dies out among the patrons and lovers of the Drama-at-its-best is the
private opinion, publicly expressed, of Yours, truly, "THE ONE MAN SEEN" IN
A BOX.
P.S.--When _Diplomacy_ shall have accomplished its Hundred Nights, Mr. HARE
can announce its Scentenary.
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