"COURT ON!"
The "Triple Bill" still going strong at the Court. The New Sub, a smartly-written little One-Act Play, by SEYMOUR HICKS, notable for good performance all round, but especially for the rendering of Mrs. Darlington, by Miss GERTRUDE KINGSTON, of Major Ensor, by BRANDON THOMAS, and of Second-Lieutenant Darlington, by Mr. ERNEST BERTRAM—uncommonly Earnest BERTRAM. The Scene is in a Hut at Shorncliffe. Hutcætera. If Lieutenant Crookendon's catch—phrase about "a funny world" were repeated just about five times less frequently than it is, the piece, the part, and the public would be distinctly gainers.
At 9:10, appears Faithful James, represented by Mr. WEEDON GROSSMITH. It is a finished and quietly droll performance. The author, Mr. B.C. STEPHENSON ("B.C." makes him quite a classic—date uncertain, so his plot may have been done in collaboration, with PLAUTUS or TERENCE) has reproduced from the French a neatly-constructed One-Act piece, in which are all the possibilities of a Three-Act Criterion or Palais Royal Farcical Comedy. So rapid is the action, all over in about forty-five minutes, and so much to the point of the plot is the dialogue, that an inattentive auditor would soon lose the thread of the argument, never to pick it up again anywhere. Miss ELLALINE TERRIS is just that very Mrs. Duncan. BRANDON THOMAS is a breezy, brusque, and Admirable Admiral; and Mr. DRAYCOTT a hearty husband, very much in love with his pretty little wife. Mr. LITTLE makes much, perhaps almost a Little too much, of his small but essentially important part,—they are all important parts,—and of Miss SYBIL GREY can be said "Nous savons Gré à Mlle. Sybil." Mr. SIDNEY WARDEN's Character Sketch of the young and rather raw German Waiter, is excellent; the Waiter being "raw," is not overdone. Not a dull second in the farce. Will our B.C. Author give us some of his adaptations from PLAUTUS, TERENCE (some good old Irish plots of course, in the writings of this author), and a few other ancients with whom he was, it is most probable, personally and intimately acquainted. To think that the Wandering Jew, who can only sign himself "A.D.", is "not in it" in point of time with our STEPHENSON "B.C."!
After this comes the Pantomime Rehearsal, which everybody should see, and which nearly everybody must have seen by this time. Success to the Triple Bill, which, in the political world, might mean Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT and WILLIAM GLADSTONE, the latter WILLIAM "counting two on a division."
EXACT.—"He is something in the Church," said Mrs. R., trying to describe the social position of a clerical friend of hers. "I forget what it is, but it's a something like 'Dromedary;' only, you needn't smile, of course I know it couldn't be that, as a Dromedary has two humps on his back. Or, stop!" she exclaimed, suddenly, "am I confusing him with a Minor Camel?"
