AT THE PLAY.
"VICTORY."
MR. MACDONALD HASTINGS has invented, and committed, yet another new sin—that of attempting to do a CONRAD novel into a three-act play. Fifteen, possibly; but three? We hardly think. What every Conradist knows is that you can't compress that master of subtlety without losing the master's dominant quality—atmosphere; that it's not so much the things he says but the queer way and the odd order in which he says them that matter. He is not precisely a filmable person.
And yet, all things considered, the potter has produced a tolerable pot, and we may write down his fault of extreme foolhardiness as venial. What, however, Mr. CONRAD himself thought of the rehearsals, if he attended them—but perhaps we need not go into that.
It is easy to see the attraction, for the players, of the series of star parts provided by the exciting story. You have first the eccentric, misjudged Swede, Heyst (the adapter makes him an Englishman, perhaps wisely, as our stage takes no account of Swedes), come from self-banishment on a far Pacific island—a complex Conradian personality. Then his arch-enemy, Schomberg, lieutenant of reserve, shady hotel-keeper, sensualist and craven, with his insane malice. To these enter as pretty a company of miscreants as ever sailed the Southern seas: the sinister Jones, misogynist to the point of fine frenzy, nonconformist in the matter of card-playing, and thereafter frank bandit with a high ethic as to the superiority of plain robbery under arms over mere vulgar swindling—a gentleman with a code, in fact; his strictly incomparable "secretary," Ricardo of the rolling eyes and gait and deathly treacherous knife, philogynist sans phrase; and Pedro, their groom, a reincarnated Caliban. It may also be noted that Heyst has a freak servant, the disappearing Wang, whom the adapter uses, I suppose legitimately, as a kind of clown. And then, finally, there is a charming and unusual heroine, Lena, still in her teens, but of real flesh and blood, innocent and persecuted, daughter of a drunken fiddler (deceased), herself fiddling in a tenth-rate orchestra at Schomberg's hotel, wherein it is not intended that the music shall be the chief attraction to the guests.
Heyst is Perseus to Lena's Andromeda, carrying her off to his island out of lust's way. But dragon Schomberg has a sting left in his malicious tale, told to the unlikely trio of scoundrels, to the effect that Heyst has ill-gotten treasure hoarded on his island. Dragon Ricardo persuades his chief to the adventure of attaching it. A fine brew of passion and action forsooth: Lena passionately adoring; the aloof Heyst passing suddenly from indifference to ardour; the bestial Ricardo in pursuit of his startled quarry; and gentleman Jones intent on non-existent booty and rapt out of him self by cynical fury at the discovery of an unsuspected woman in the case. And while Mr. CONRAD in his novel drives all these to a relentless doom Mr. HASTINGS contrives a happy ending, which goes perilously near an anticlimax, with the hero on his knees and the heroine pointing up to heaven and claiming a "victory" quite other than their creator intended. But then he knew perfectly well that nobody wants to come to see Miss MARIE LÖHR killed.
Lena (Miss MARIE LÖHR) to Heyst (Mr. MURRAY CARRINGTON). "OH YES, YOU SMILE ALL RIGHT; BUT ONE MAY SMILE AND SMILE AND YET GET NO FORRARDER."
On the whole I can't think the cast was up to its extremely difficult task, if you estimate that task, as it seems to me you must, to be the reproducing of the original Victory characters. Perhaps Mr. SAM LIVESEY'S Ricardo was the nearest, though the primitive savagery of his wooing had to be toned down in the interests of propriety. Mr. GAYER MACKAY made his Jones interesting and plausible in the quieter opening movements. In the intended tragic spasms one felt that he became rather comic than sinister. Not his fault, I think. He had no room or time to work up his part. That should also apply to Mr. GARRY'S Schomberg, though he doesn't seem to have tried to fit himself into the skin of that entertaining villain. Mr. MURRAY CARRINGTON had an exceedingly tough task with his Heyst. But was he even as detached and eccentric as the average modern don? Certainly he was not the man of mystery of the original pattern, but rather the amiable comely film-hero.
Miss LÖHR had her interesting moments, the best of them, perhaps, in the First Act. In her big scene, where the knife is to be won from Ricardo, she was no doubt hampered by the tradition that it is necessary to play down to the carefully cultivated imbecility of the audience in order that they should not misunderstand the most obvious points. It's not flattering to us, but it can't be helped. Probably we deserve it. But need she have been quite so refined? Only very occasionally does she remember that Lena is fine matter in a "common" mould, which is surely of the essence of the situation. I do seriously recommend a re-reading of what should be a character full of blood, which is ever so much more amusing than sawdust, however charmingly encased. I feel sure she could shock and at the same time please the groundlings if she let herself go.
And where, by the way, did she get that charmingly-cut skirt in the Second Act? She certainly hadn't it in her bundle when she left the hotel. And yet the stage-manager will go to the trouble, for the sake of a quite misguided realism, of making the hotel orchestra play against the dialogue as if the persistent coughing of the audience were not sufficient handicap to his team.
Miss BALVAIRD-HEWETT gave a clever rendering of the hotel-keeper's sombre Frau; and Mr. GEORGE ELTON contributed an excellent Chinese servant.
But you can't, you really can't, get a gallon into a pint pot, however strenuous the potter.
T.