"The Show Shop."
The drama is almost the only religion I know that can expose the mysteries of its ritual to the vulgar gaze and yet retain the devotion of its worshippers. There is nothing a British audience so loves as to be taken behind the scenes and shown how it is done—or not done; and then it will attend the next play and go on adoring with the blindest infatuation. Were it not for this astounding gift of resilience one might deplore the prurient curiosity that wants to peep into the hollow image of Isis and get at the machinery of the priesthood.
More human and wholesome is the satisfaction derived from the revelation of amateur foibles, for here we are laughing at ourselves, as in A Pantomime Rehearsal. In The Show Shop this element was supplied by a young plutocrat who took a small part with a travelling company in order to be near his fiancée, the leading lady; and continued in it as jeune premier because she refused to be made love to on the stage by anybody else. In assuming a rôle for which he was incredibly ill-qualified he seemed likely to facilitate the achievement of his purpose, namely to make the play a hopeless failure and so secure the deliverance of his lady from the thraldom of her mother's ambitions and set her free to marry him.
However, the failure failed to come off, and although he forgot to remove his overcoat (containing the stolen bonds) at a critical juncture on which the Great Situation turned—the error was so deadly that the mother, who had stage-managed the thing and was witnessing the first performance from a box, actually rose in her seat to correct it—the play was a roaring success; and there was nothing for it but a secret marriage, marred by the prospect of a two years' run "on Broadway."
Mr. A. E. Matthews, as the amateur, made extraordinarily good fun for us; and there was something fresh in the idea of following up the dress rehearsal with a first night. It not only gave the amateur his chance of making the big mistake against which he had been thoroughly warned, but our own applause allowed the company to put into practice the lessons they had learned in those sacred conventions which regulate the taking of a call.
There are those who say that Transatlantic humour should be interpreted exclusively by a native cast, and that an Anglo-American alliance is a mistake. I trust President Wilson's recent policy will not be affected by this view. Certainly, though the combination was responsible for the noisiest fun of the farce, the purely American performance of Miss Margaret Moffatt at the opening of the First Act was as good as anything in the play. But happily this is not one of those imported creations that overwhelm my uninstructed intelligence with exotic colour and exotic slang.
Mr. Edmund Gwenn, as Max Rosenbaum, impresario, was in irresistible form. Miss Marie Löhr, in the part of the leading lady, was at her lightest and therefore her best; but Lady Tree (her designing mother), though she played very hard and incisively, could scarcely have satisfied her own very nice sense of humour with what was to be got out of a character that resembled nothing on earth (or the Eastern hemisphere anyhow).
In the midst of all the mirth there was a pathetic passage between a couple of impecunious players, Johnny Brinkley (played by Mr. George Elton, who had many good things to say and said them well) and Effie, his wife, on the theme of the precariousness of their career. It must have melted the cynical heart of many a critic in the audience, and I for one was almost persuaded to confine myself for the future to encomium in these columns.
However, there is no flattery in the compliments I beg to offer to Mr. James Forbes for a very diverting evening. Perhaps the last Act dragged a little, but in any case after the orgy he had given us we were ripe for reaction. With most imported plays one is apt to doubt whether the humour is novel in its essence or merely a matter of unfamiliar form, common enough in its place of origin. But the humour of Mr. Forbes, or at least the best of it, is something more than American.
O. S.
"She heard him blowing his nose on the hall mat, and she understood the major sufficiently to know that this portended something."—Home Chat.
We have always regarded this behaviour as ominous, even in the case of civilians.
"Once you have a wife and are tied down to the world, she creates the necessity of a house and saves you from being a wanderer on the face of the earth. No wife, no house. Hence, say our Shastras, it is not the building called the house that is the wife, it is the wife who is the house. And even now, both among the high and the low, it is usual for a Hindu to speak of his wife as his house."
N. G. Chandavarkarin "The Times of India."
We foresee domestic trouble when the Flat system reaches India.