AT THE PLAY.
"Fédora."
It may or may not be well that the War has modified our estimate of the value of life; but it is a bad thing for the legitimate drama. And in the case of Fédora the bloody régime of Lenin has so paled our memory of the terrors of Nihilism that Sardou's play seems almost further away from us than the tragedy of Agamemnon. In our callous incapacity to be thrilled by the ancient horrors of forty years ago we fall back on the satisfaction to be got out of the author's dexterity in the mechanics of his craft.
And here the critic's judgment is also apt to be more cold-blooded. He recognises the crude improbability of certain details which are essential to the tragic development of the play. The death of Count Vladimir (accented on the first or second syllable according to the temporary emotion of the speaker) was due to the discovery of a letter in an unlocked drawer where it could never possibly have been thrown, being an extremely private letter of assignation. The death of Fédora, again, was the direct result of a letter which she despatched to Petersburg denouncing a man who proved, in the light of fresh facts learned a few minutes later, to be the last (or last but one) that she would wish to injure. It is incredible that she should not have hastened to send a second letter withdrawing her charge; "instead of which" she goes casually off on a honeymoon with his brother, and apparently never gives another thought to the matter till it is fatally too late.
However, I am not really concerned at this time of day with the improbabilities of so well-established a tragedy, but only with the most recent interpretation of it. And let me say at once that, for the best of reasons, I do not propose to compete with the erudition of my fellow-critics in the matter of previous interpreters, for I bring a virgin mind to my consideration of the merits of the present cast.
Fédora is the most exhausting test to which Miss Marie Löhr has yet put her talent. The heroine's emotions are worked at top-pressure almost throughout the play. At the very start she is torn with passionate grief for the death of her lover and a still more passionate desire to take vengeance on the man who killed him. When she learns the unworthiness of the one and the justification of the other those emotions are instantly exchanged for a passionate worship of the late object of her vengeance, to be followed by bitter remorse for the harm she has done him and terror of the consequences when he comes to know the truth. And so to suicide.
I will confess that I was astonished at the power with which Miss Löhr met these exigent demands upon her emotional forces. It was indeed a remarkable performance. My only reservation is that in one passage she was too anxious to convey to the audience the intensity of her remorse, when it was a first necessity that she should conceal it from the other actor on the stage. It was nice and loyal of Mr. Basil Rathbone to behave as if he didn't notice anything unusual, but it must have been as patent to him as to us.
Of his Loris I cannot say too much in admiration. At first Mr. Rathbone seemed a little stiff in his admirably-fitting dress-clothes, but in the last scene he moved through those swift changes of emotion—from joy to grief, from rage to pity and the final anguish and horror—with extraordinary imagination and resource.
Of the others, Mr. Allan Aynesworth, as Jean de Siriex, played in a quiet and assured undertone that served to correct the rather expansive methods of Miss Ellis Jeffreys, whose humour, always delightful, afforded a little more relief than was perhaps consistent with the author's designs and her own dignity as a great lady in the person of the Countess Olga.
O. S.
A Matinée in aid of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children will be given at the Garrick Theatre on Wednesday, November 17th, at 2.30, when a comedy by Mr. Louis N. Parker will be presented, entitled, Pomander Walk (period 1805).
It is hoped that at the Alhambra Matinée on November 16th one thousand pounds will be raised to complete the special pension fund for actors, which is to be a tribute of affection to the memory of Mr. Sydney Valentine, who, in the words of Mr. McKinnel, "did more for the rank and file of the theatrical profession than any actor, living or dead."
"The Dog it was who Died."
"At Dovey Board of Conservators at Barmouth it was decided to ask Major Dd. Davies to hunt the district with his otter hounds, and failing this the water bailiffs themselves should attempt to stamp them out."
—Welsh Paper.
Major Dd. Davies' answer is not known to us, but we assume that he said, "Well, I'm Dd."
"Royal Surrey Theatre. Grand Opera. To-night, 8, Cav. and Pag."
—Daily Paper.
More evidence of the paper-shortage.
Affluent Sportsman (after a long blank draw). "Now I bet you we'll find as soon as I light one of my half-dollar cigars."
Friend. "Don't you think we might make a certainty of it if I lit one too?"