THE OLD AND NEW SCHOOL—FOR SCANDAL.
The two principal figures to be considered are Mr. William Farren, who, as Sir Peter, is a Master of Arts in the Old School, and Miss Rehan, who as Lady Teazle is an experimentalising teacher in the New School for Scandal. All playgoers, whose memory takes them back over a quarter of a century, must be familiar with William Farren's Sir Peter, which, in our time may have been rivalled, but has rarely been equalled (I do not remember his equal in the past), and certainly never excelled. A trifle overdone now and then, a trifle hard in manner here and there, perhaps, but, as a whole, simply admirable. Mr. Daly never made a better engagement than when he secured William Farren for Sir Peter. About Miss Rehan's Lady Teazle there will be various opinions and, truth to tell, I do not precisely know from what point of view and by what standard to judge of her performance. Sir Peter describes her as "a girl bred wholly in the country," and so forth, "yet," he continues, "she now plays her part in all the extravagant fopperies of fashion and the town with as ready a grace as if she had never seen a bush or a grass plot out of Grosvenor Square." To let her country training be perceived through the assumed airs and graces of a town Madame seems to me to be Miss Rehan's object; and in this, granting her ideas of the country hoyden and the town lady to be correct, she certainly succeeds; notably in the scenes with Sir Peter. For thus is the Jekyl-and-Hyde-ness of her character made apparent: in company, in the scandal scenes, she is to be all airs and graces, but when alone with her husband she, in spite of her perpetual wrangling with him, reappears as her own natural self, with most of the polish temporarily rubbed off. But if this be so, then, when in "society," her funny little run and shaking of the head are out of place, while they may be accepted as a relapse into her provincialisms when she is quite free and easy, en tête-à-tête with Sir Peter, and especially bent on captivating him by recalling to his memory the lass of whom he had become desperately enamoured some eight months ago.
Shade of Sheridan. "William Farren, my old friend, I congratulate you: and I suspect that in the present generation I owe you much."
Sir William Peter Farren Teazle. "Not more than I do you, Mr. Sheridan. Let us say, mutually indebted."
[They exchange snuff-pinches.
In the Screen Scene when "discovered," Miss Rehan's attitude is eloquent; and on this tableau I have always thought the curtain should descend, as all after this, even Sir Peter's exit with "damn your sentiments," good as it is, is an anti-climax. I should prefer that Miss Rehan's Lady Teazle should be silent, or if it must be played as written, then here of all situations in the comedy would I insist upon her emphasising the perfectly natural manner of the unaffected country girl, instead of addressing Sir Peter in the deep tones of a tragedian, as if attempting a mere theatrical effect. In the last Act, as arranged, she appears to have done with her town airs and graces for ever, and, wearing a queer sort of mob-cap, enters on Sir Peter's arm, ready with him to face the ridicule, the satire, and the scandal of their world.
Miss Vanbrugh makes a delightful Lady Sneerwell, and Mrs. Gilbert a dear old Mrs. Candour, who would spitefully gossip about her neighbours for hours together. Maria is almost always a thankless part, and Miss Percy Haswell leaves no doubt on the mind of the audience of her being a poor orphan of some six months' standing. The part of Moses offers very little scope to Mr. James Lewis, especially as the celebrated "I'll take my oath of that" is cut out, and some lines are introduced, which being quite un-Sheridanesque and un-Mosaic do not in the least assist the character. However, as he is much slapped on the back, dug in the ribs, and generally treated as a butt by Charles and Careless (who, by the way, gives "Here's to the Maiden" in first-rate style), Mr. Lewis may be congratulated on getting to the end of his impersonation of one of the long-suffering tribe in perfect safety. Mr. Bourchier's Charles goes well with the audience; but Mr. George Clarke is too conscientious, and too impressed with a sense of the horrible scoundrelism of Joseph's character to be ever really at home in so uncongenial a part.
Lady Ada Rehan Teazle.
"In for some sort of a run"—at Daly's.
For the re-arrangement, much may be said "for," and more "against." There is only one point that strikes me as absolutely inartistic, and that is, making Sir Peter give his explanatory speech about his wife after we have seen her, instead of leaving it in its proper place, as Sheridan wrote it, where it serves as a prologue to the subsequent scene between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, when she appears for the first time in the comedy.
There are some curious oversights in the scenic arrangements at Daly's. The first is in Charles Surface's picture gallery, which has no windows and no skylight. The second is that though Charles has sold all his books, yet through the door of the picture-room are seen the first shelves of an evidently well-stocked library. The third oversight is in Joseph's chambers, described in the original play as "a library in Joseph Surface's house," where, when he tells Sir Peter that "books are the only things I am a coxcomb in," there are only a very few volumes to be seen, and these are lying at haphazard on a table.
To revert for a moment to Charles Surface's windowless and skylightless picture gallery, the scene takes place in the evening, after dinner, or supper, and how is the huge apartment lighted? Why, by a couple of ordinary candles placed on a side-table, while on the mantelpiece at the back remain a couple of silver candelabra, filled with candles which remain all the time unlighted. Why, naturally, the company would have been in darkness, but not a bit of it, for these two candles do give so preternaturally wonderful an illumination, that the stage is as bright as a sunlighted garden at noonday in July. The company that could produce such candles would make a fortune by their patent. The dance at the end of the first Act brings down the curtain to enthusiastic applause, and, to the end, the old comedy, in spite of various chops and changes, holds its own, as it ever will do, triumphantly.