For this I see no necessity at all, and it makes the scene look less natural than it should--gives it, I mean, too formal an air. However, the performance was most spirited and gave great pleasure to every one.
Mr. Alexander is an artist from whom much will be expected, and I have no doubt he will give us much that is fine and n.o.ble. He seems to have all the qualifications for a good actor.
There is just one other character I should like to notice. The First Player seemed to me to act far too well. He should act very badly. The First Player, besides his position in the dramatic evolution of the tragedy, is Shakespeare"s caricature of the ranting actor of his day, just as the pa.s.sage he recites is Shakespeare"s own parody on the dull plays of some of his rivals. The whole point of Hamlet"s advice to the players seems to me to be lost unless the Player himself has been guilty of the fault which Hamlet reprehends, unless he has sawn the air with his hand, mouthed his lines, torn his pa.s.sion to tatters, and out-Heroded Herod. The very sensibility which Hamlet notices in the actor, such as his real tears and the like, is not the quality of a good artist. The part should be played after the manner of a provincial tragedian. It is meant to be a satire, and to play it well is to play it badly. The scenery and costumes were excellent with the exception of the King"s dress, which was coa.r.s.e in colour and tawdry in effect. And the Player Queen should have come in boy"s attire to Elsinore.
However, last Sat.u.r.day night was not a night for criticism. The theatre was filled with those who desired to welcome Mr. Irving back to his own theatre, and we were all delighted at his re-appearance among us. I hope that some time will elapse before he and Miss Terry cross again that disappointing Atlantic Ocean.
TWO NEW NOVELS
(Pall Mall Gazette, May 15, 1885.)
The clever auth.o.r.ess of In the Golden Days has chosen for the scene of her story the England of two centuries ago, as a relief, she tells us in her preface, "from perpetual nineteenth-centuryism." Upon the other hand, she makes a pathetic appeal to her readers not to regard her book as an "historical novel," on the ground that such a t.i.tle strikes terror into the public. This seems to us rather a curious position to take up.
Esmond and Notre Dame are historical novels, both of them, and both of them popular successes. John Inglesant and Romola have gone through many editions, and even Salammbo has its enthusiasts. We think that the public is very fond of historical novels, and as for perpetual "nineteenth-centuryism"--a vile phrase, by the way--we only wish that more of our English novelists studied our age and its society than do so at present. However, In the Golden Days must not be judged by its foolish preface. It is really a very charming book, and though Dryden, Betterton, and Wills"s Coffee-House are dragged in rather a propos de bottes, still the picture of the time is well painted. Joyce, the little Puritan maiden, is an exquisite creation, and Hugo Wharncliffe, her lover, makes a fine hero. The sketch of Algernon Sidney is rather colourless, but Charles II. is well drawn. It seems to be a novel with a high purpose and a n.o.ble meaning. Yet it is never dull.
Mrs. Macquoid"s Louisa is modern and the scene is in Italy. Italy, we fear, has been a good deal overdone in fiction. A little more Piccadilly and a little less Perugia would be a relief. However, the story is interesting. A young English girl marries an Italian n.o.bleman and, after some time, being bored with picturesqueness, falls in love with an Englishman. The story is told with a great deal of power and ends properly and pleasantly. It can safely be recommended to young persons.
(1) In the Golden Days. By Edna Lyall, Author of We Two, Donovan, etc.
(Hurst and Blackett.)
(2) Louisa. By Katherine S. Macquoid. (Bentley and Son.)
HENRY THE FOURTH AT OXFORD
(Dramatic Review, May 23, 1885.)
I have been told that the ambition of every Dramatic Club is to act Henry IV. I am not surprised. The spirit of comedy is as fervent in this play as is the spirit of chivalry; it is an heroic pageant as well as an heroic poem, and like most of Shakespeare"s historical dramas it contains an extraordinary number of thoroughly good acting parts, each of which is absolutely individual in character, and each of which contributes to the evolution of the plot.
Rumour, from time to time, has brought in tidings of a proposed production by the banks of the Cam, but it seems at the last moment Box and c.o.x has always had to be subst.i.tuted in the bill.
To Oxford belongs the honour of having been the first to present on the stage this n.o.ble play, and the production which I saw last week was in every way worthy of that lovely town, that mother of sweetness and of light. For, in spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisector, in spite of Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one. Indeed, in most other towns art has often to present herself in the form of a reaction against the sordid ugliness of ign.o.ble lives, but at Oxford she comes to us as an exquisite flower born of the beauty of life and expressive of life"s joy. She finds her home by the Isis as once she did by the Ilissus; the Magdalen walks and the Magdalen cloisters are as dear to her as were ever the silver olives of Colonus and the golden gateway of the house of Pallas: she covers with fanlike tracery the vaulted entrance to Christ Church Hall, and looks out from the windows of Merton; her feet have stirred the c.u.mnor cowslips, and she gathers fritillaries in the river-fields. To her the clamour of the schools and the dulness of the lecture-room are a weariness and a vexation of spirit; she seeks not to define virtue, and cares little for the categories; she smiles on the swift athlete whose plastic grace has pleased her, and rejoices in the young Barbarians at their games; she watches the rowers from the reedy bank and gives myrtle to her lovers, and laurel to her poets, and rue to those who talk wisely in the street; she makes the earth lovely to all who dream with Keats; she opens high heaven to all who soar with Sh.e.l.ley; and turning away her head from pedant, proctor and Philistine, she has welcomed to her shrine a band of youthful actors, knowing that they have sought with much ardour for the stern secret of Melpomene, and caught with much gladness the sweet laughter of Thalia. And to me this ardour and this gladness were the two most fascinating qualities of the Oxford performance, as indeed they are qualities which are necessary to any fine dramatic production. For without quick and imaginative observation of life the most beautiful play becomes dull in presentation, and what is not conceived in delight by the actor can give no delight at all to others.
I know that there are many who consider that Shakespeare is more for the study than for the stage. With this view I do not for a moment agree.
Shakespeare wrote the plays to be acted, and we have no right to alter the form which he himself selected for the full expression of his work.
Indeed, many of the beauties of that work can be adequately conveyed to us only through the actor"s art. As I sat in the Town Hall of Oxford the other night, the majesty of the mighty lines of the play seemed to me to gain new music from the clear young voices that uttered them, and the ideal grandeur of the heroism to be made more real to the spectators by the chivalrous bearing, the n.o.ble gesture and the fine pa.s.sion of its exponents. Even the dresses had their dramatic value. Their archaeological accuracy gave us, immediately on the rise of the curtain, a perfect picture of the time. As the knights and n.o.bles moved across the stage in the flowing robes of peace and in the burnished steel of battle, we needed no dreary chorus to tell us in what age or land the play"s action was pa.s.sing, for the fifteenth century in all the dignity and grace of its apparel was living actually before us, and the delicate harmonies of colour struck from the first a dominant note of beauty which added to the intellectual realism of archaeology the sensuous charm of art.
As for individual actors, Mr. Mackinnon"s Prince Hal was a most gay and graceful performance, lit here and there with charming touches of princely dignity and of n.o.ble feeling. Mr. Coleridge"s Falstaff was full of delightful humour, though perhaps at times he did not take us sufficiently into his confidence. An audience looks at a tragedian, but a comedian looks at his audience. However, he gave much pleasure to every one, and Mr. Bourchier"s Hotspur was really most remarkable. Mr.
Bourchier has a fine stage presence, a beautiful voice, and produces his effects by a method as dramatically impressive as it is artistically right. Once or twice he seemed to me to spoil his last line by walking through it. The part of Harry Percy is one full of climaxes which must not be let slip. But still there was always a freedom and spirit in his style which was very pleasing, and his delivery of the colloquial pa.s.sages I thought excellent, notably of that in the first act:
What d" ye call the place?
A plague upon"t--it is in Gloucestershire; "Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept, His uncle York;
lines by the way in which Kemble made a great effect. Mr. Bourchier has the opportunity of a fine career on the English stage, and I hope he will take advantage of it. Among the minor parts in the play Glendower, Mortimer and Sir Richard Vernon were capitally acted, Worcester was a performance of some subtlety, Mrs. Woods was a charming Lady Percy, and Lady Edward Spencer Churchill, as Mortimer"s wife, made us all believe that we understood Welsh. Her dialogue and her song were most pleasing bits of artistic realism which fully accounted for the Celtic chair at Oxford.
But though I have mentioned particular actors, the real value of the whole representation was to be found in its absolute unity, in its delicate sense of proportion, and in that breadth of effect which is to be got only by the most careful elaboration of detail. I have rarely seen a production better stage-managed. Indeed, I hope that the University will take some official notice of this delightful work of art.
Why should not degrees be granted for good acting? Are they not given to those who misunderstand Plato and who mistranslate Aristotle? And should the artist be pa.s.sed over? No. To Prince Hal, Hotspur and Falstaff, D.C.L."s should be gracefully offered. I feel sure they would be gracefully accepted. To the rest of the company the crimson or the sheep- skin hood might be a.s.signed honoris causa to the eternal confusion of the Philistine, and the rage of the industrious and the dull. Thus would Oxford confer honour on herself, and the artist be placed in his proper position. However, whether or not Convocation recognises the claims of culture, I hope that the Oxford Dramatic Society will produce every summer for us some n.o.ble play like Henry IV. For, in plays of this kind, plays which deal with bygone times, there is always this peculiar charm, that they combine in one exquisite presentation the pa.s.sions that are living with the picturesqueness that is dead. And when we have the modern spirit given to us in an antique form, the very remoteness of that form can be made a method of increased realism. This was Shakespeare"s own att.i.tude towards the ancient world, this is the att.i.tude we in this century should adopt towards his plays, and with a feeling akin to this it seemed to me that these brilliant young Oxonians were working. If it was so, their aim is the right one. For while we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.
MODERN GREEK POETRY
(Pall Mall Gazette, May 27, 1885.)
Odysseus, not Achilles, is the type of the modern Greek. Merchandise has taken precedence of the Muses and politics are preferred to Parna.s.sus.
Yet by the Illissus there are sweet singers; the nightingales are not silent in Colonus; and from the garden of Greek nineteenth-century poetry Miss Edmonds has made a very pleasing anthology; and in pouring the wine from the golden into the silver cup she has still kept much of the beauty of the original. Even when translated into English, modern Greek lyrics are preferable to modern Greek loans.
As regards the quality of this poetry, if the old Greek spirit can be traced at all, it is the spirit of Tyrtaeus and of Theocritus. The warlike ballads of Rhigas and Aristotle Valaorites have a fine ring of music and of pa.s.sion in them, and the folk-songs of George Drosines are full of charming pictures of rustic life and delicate idylls of shepherds" courtships. These we acknowledge that we prefer. The flutes of the sheepfold are more delightful than the clarions of battle. Still, poetry played such a n.o.ble part in the Greek War of Independence that it is impossible not to look with reverence on the spirited war-songs that meant so much to those who were righting for liberty and mean so much even now to their children.
Other poets besides Drosines have taken the legends that linger among the peasants and given to them an artistic form. The song of The Seasons is full of beauty, and there is a delightful poem on The Building of St.
Sophia, which tells how the design of that n.o.ble building was suggested by the golden honeycomb of a bee which had flown from the king"s palace with a crumb of blessed bread that had fallen from the king"s hands. The story is still to be found in Thrace.
One of the ballads, also, has a good deal of spirit. It is by Kostes Palamas and was suggested by an interesting incident which occurred some years ago in Athens. In the summer of 1881 there was borne through the streets the remains of an aged woman in the complete costume of a Pallikar, which dress she had worn at the siege of Missolonghi and in it had requested to be buried. The life of this real Greek heroine should be studied by those who are investigating the question of wherein womanliness consists. The view the poet takes of her is, we need hardly say, very different from that which Canon Liddon would entertain. Yet it is none the less fine on this account, and we are glad that this old lady has been given a place in art. The volume is, on the whole, delightful reading, and though not much can be said for lines like these:
There _cometh_ from the West The timid starry _bands_,
still, the translations are in many instances most felicitous and their style most pleasing.
Greek Lays, Idylls, Legends, etc. Translated by E. M. Edmonds. (Trubner and Co.)
OLIVIA AT THE LYCEUM
(Dramatic Review, May 30, 1885.)
Whether or not it is an advantage for a novel to be produced in a dramatic form is, I think, open to question. The psychological a.n.a.lysis of such work as that of Mr. George Meredith, for instance, would probably lose by being trans.m.u.ted into the pa.s.sionate action of the stage, nor does M. Zola"s formule scientifique gain anything at all by theatrical presentation. With Goldsmith it is somewhat different. In The Vicar of Wakefield he seeks simply to please his readers, and desires not to prove a theory; he looks on life rather as a picture to be painted than as a problem to be solved; his aim is to create men and women more than to vivisect them; his dialogue is essentially dramatic, and his novel seems to pa.s.s naturally into the dramatic form. And to me there is something very pleasurable in seeing and studying the same subject under different conditions of art. For life remains eternally unchanged; it is art which, by presenting it to us under various forms, enables us to realise its many-sided mysteries, and to catch the quality of its most fiery-coloured moments. The originality, I mean, which we ask from the artist, is originality of treatment, not of subject. It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes, and he annexes everything.
Looking in this light at Mr. Wills"s Olivia, it seems to me a very exquisite work of art. Indeed, I know no other dramatist who could have re-told this beautiful English tale with such tenderness and such power, neither losing the charm of the old story nor forgetting the conditions of the new form. The sentiment of the poet and the science of the playwright are exquisitely balanced in it. For though in prose it is a poem, and while a poem it is also a play.
But fortunate as Mr. Wills has been in the selection of his subject and in his treatment of it, he is no less fortunate in the actors who interpret his work. To whatever character Miss Terry plays she brings the infinite charm of her beauty, and the marvellous grace of her movements and gestures. It is impossible to escape from the sweet tyranny of her personality. She dominates her audience by the secret of Cleopatra. In her Olivia, however, it is not merely her personality that fascinates us but her power also, her power over pathos, and her command of situation. The scene in which she bade goodbye to her family was touching beyond any scene I remember in any modern play, yet no harsh or violent note was sounded; and when in the succeeding act she struck, in natural and n.o.ble indignation, the libertine who had betrayed her, there was, I think, no one in the theatre who did not recognise that in Miss Terry our stage possesses a really great artist, who can thrill an audience without harrowing it, and by means that seem simple and easy can produce the finest dramatic effect. Mr. Irving, as Dr. Primrose, intensified the beautiful and blind idolatry of the old pastor for his daughter till his own tragedy seems almost greater than hers; the scene in the third act, where he breaks down in his attempt to reprove the lamb that has strayed from the fold, was a masterpiece of fine acting; and the whole performance, while carefully elaborate in detail, was full of breadth and dignity. I acknowledge that I liked him least at the close of the second act. It seems to me that here we should be made to feel not merely the pa.s.sionate rage of the father, but the powerlessness of the old man. The taking down of the pistols, and the attempt to follow the young duellist, are pathetic because they are useless, and I hardly think that Mr. Irving conveyed this idea. As regards the rest of the characters, Mr. Terriss"s Squire Thornhill was an admirable picture of a fascinating young rake. Indeed, it was so fascinating that the moral equilibrium of the audience was quite disturbed, and n.o.body seemed to care very much for the virtuous Mr. Burch.e.l.l. I was not sorry to see this triumph of the artistic over the ethical sympathy. Perfect heroes are the monsters of melodramas, and have no place in dramatic art. Life possibly contains them, but Parna.s.sus often rejects what Peckham may welcome. I look forward to a reaction in favour of the cultured criminal. Mr. Norman Forbes was a very pleasing Moses, and gave his Latin quotations charmingly, Miss Emery"s Sophy was most winning, and, indeed, every part seemed to me well acted except that of the virtuous Mr. Burch.e.l.l. This fact, however, rather pleased me than otherwise, as it increased the charm of his attractive nephew.
The scenery and costumes were excellent, as indeed they always are at the Lyceum when the piece is produced under Mr. Irving"s direction. The first scene was really very beautiful, and quite as good as the famous cherry orchard of the Theatre Francais. A critic who posed as an authority on field sports a.s.sured me that no one ever went out hunting when roses were in full bloom. Personally, that is exactly the season I would select for the chase, but then I know more about flowers than I do about foxes, and like them much better. If the critic was right, either the roses must wither or Squire Thornhill must change his coat. A more serious objection may be brought against the division of the last act into three scenes. There, I think, there was a distinct dramatic loss.
The room to which Olivia returns should have been exactly the same room she had left. As a picture of the eighteenth century, however, the whole production was admirable, and the details, both of acting and of mise-en- scene, wonderfully perfect. I wish Olivia would take off her pretty mittens when her fortune is being told. Cheiromancy is a science which deals almost entirely with the lines on the palm of the hand, and mittens would seriously interfere with its mysticism. Still, when all is said, how easily does this lovely play, this artistic presentation, survive criticisms founded on cheiromancy and cub-hunting! The Lyceum under Mr.
Irving"s management has become a centre of art. We are all of us in his debt. I trust that we may see some more plays by living dramatists produced at his theatre, for Olivia has been exquisitely mounted and exquisitely played.
AS YOU LIKE IT AT COOMBE HOUSE