AVENUE HUNCHBACK.
Of course there is nothing very new in the idea of a cripple loving a beautiful maiden, while the beautiful maiden bestows her affections on somebody else. SHERIDAN KNOWLES's Hunchback, Master Walter, is an exception to Hunchbacks generally, as he turns out to be the father, not the lover, of the leading lady. It has remained for Mr. CARTON to give us in an original three-act play a deformed hero, who has to sacrifice love to duty, or, rather, to let self-abnegation triumph over the gratification of self. This self-sacrificing part is admirably played by Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER, whose simple make-up for the character is irreproachable. That something more can still be made by him of the scene of his great temptation I feel sure, and if he does this he will have developed several full leaves from his already budding laurels, and, which is presently important, he will have added another 100 nights to the run.
Maud (without the final "e") capitally played by Miss MAUDE (with the final "E") MILLETT. (Why didn't the author choose another name when this character was cast to Miss MILLETT? Not surely for the sake of someone saying, "Come into the garden"—eh? And the author has already indulged his pungent humour by giving "George" Addis to "GEORGE" ALEXANDER. Mistake.) This character of Maud is a sketch of an utterly odious girl,—odious, that is, at home, but fascinating no doubt, away from the domestic circle. Is a sketch of such a character worth the setting? How one pities the future Bamfield ménage, when the unfortunate idiot Bamfield, well represented by Mr. BEN WEBSTER, has married this flirting, flighty, sharp-tongued, selfish little girl. To these two are given some good, light, and bright comedy scenes, recalling to the mind of the middle-aged playgoer the palmy days of what used to be known as the Robertsonian "Tea-cup-and-saucer Comedies," with dialogue, scarcely fin de siècle perhaps, but pleasant to listen to, when spoken by Miss MAUDE MILLETT, MISS TERRY, and Mr. BEN WEBSTER.
In Miss MARION TERRY's Helen, the elder of the Doctor's daughters, we have a charming type, nor could Mr. NUTCOMBE GOULD's Dr. Latimer be improved upon as an artistic performance where repose and perfectly natural demeanour give a certain coherence and solidity to the entire work. Mr. YORKE STEPHENS as Mark Denzil is too heavy, and his manner conveys the impression that, at some time or other, he will commit a crime, such, perhaps, as stealing the money from the Doctor's desk; or, when this danger is past and he hasn't done it, his still darkening, melodramatic manner misleads the audience into supposing that in Act III, he will make away with his objectionable wife, possess himself of the two hundred pounds, and then, just at the moment when, with a darkling scowl and a gleaming eye, he steps forward to claim his affianced bride, Scollick, Mr. ALFRED HOLLES, hitherto only known as the drunken gardener, will throw off his disguise, and, to a burst of applause from an excited audience, will say, "I arrest you for murder and robbery! and—I am HAWKSHAW the Detective!!!" or words to this effect. In his impersonation of Mark Denzil Mr. STEPHENS seems to have attempted an imitation of the light and airy style of Mr. ARTHUR STIRLING.
The end of the Second Act is, to my thinking, a mistake in dramatic art. Everyone of the audience knows that the woman who has stolen the money is Mark Denzil's wife, and nobody requires from Denzil himself oral confirmation of the fact, much less do they want an interval of several minutes,—it may be only seconds, but it seems minutes,—before the Curtain descends, occupied only by Mark Denzil imploring that his wife shall not be taken before the magistrate and be charged with theft. This is an anti-climax, weakening an otherwise effective situation, as the immediate result of this scene could easily be given in a couple of sentences of dialogue at the commencement of the last Act. It is this fault, far more than the unpruned passages of dialogue, that makes this interesting and well acted play seem too long—at least, such is the honest opinion of A FRIEND IN FRONT.