THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
FROU-FROU.
his nice little French drama has now been running at the FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE more than seven weeks. It is the story of a man who killed the seducer of his wife, and then forgave and received back again the guilty woman.
The same tragic farce was played in Washington some eleven years ago. The actor who played the part of the outraged husband made an effective hit at the time, but he has never repeated the performance. Since then he has become a double-star actor in a wider field, There are those who insist that he is an ill-starred actor in a general way; but as he has left the country, we can leave those who regard his absence as a good riddance of bad rubbish, and those who call it a Madriddance of good rubbish, to discuss his merits at their leisure.
After the execution of unnecessary quantities of noisy overture by the orchestra, the play begins. Soon after, the audience arrives. It is a rule with our play-goers never to see the first scene of any drama. This rule originates in a benevolent wish to permit the actors to slide gradually into a consciousness that somebody is looking at them; thus saving them from the possibility of stage-fright. Simple folks, who do not understand the meaning of the custom, erroneously regard it as an evidence of vulgarity and discourtesy.
The first act is not exciting. Mr. G.H. CLARKE, in irreproachable clothes, (the clothes of this actor's professional life become him, if any thing, better than his acting,) offers his hand to FROU-FROU, a small girl with a reckless display of back-hair, and is accepted, to the evident disgust of her sensible sister, LOUISE.
Sympathetic Young Lady who adores that dear Mr. Clarke.—"How sweetly pretty! Do the people on the stage talk just like the real French aristocracy?"
Travelled friend, knowing that persons in the neighborhood are listening for his reply—"Well, yes. To a certain extent, that is." (It suddenly occurring to him that nobody can know any thing about the Legitimists, he says confidently.) "They haven't the air, you know, of the genuine old Legitimist noblesse. As to BONAPARTE'S nobility, I don't know much about them."
He flatters himself that he has said a neat thing, but is posed by an unexpected question from the Sympathetic Young Lady, who asks—"Who are the great Legitimist families, nowadays?"
"Well, the—the—(can't think of any name but St. Germain, and so says boldly,) the St. Germains, and all the rest of 'em, you know." (He is sorely tempted to add the St. Clouds and the Luxembourgs, but prudently refrains.)
The second act shows the husband lavishing every sort of tenderness and jewelry upon the wife, who is developing a strong tendency to flirt. She insists that her sister LOUISE shall join the family and accept the position of Acting Assistant Wife and Mother, while she herself gives her whole mind to innocent flirtation.
Worldly-wise Matron of evident experience—"The girl's a fool. Catch me taking a pretty sister into my house!"
Brutal Husband of the Matron suggests—"But she might have done so much worse, my dear. Suppose she had given her husband a mother-in-law as a housekeeper?"
Matron, with suppressed fury—"Very well, my dear. If you can't refrain from insulting dear mother, I shall leave you to sit out the play alone."
(Sh—sh—sh! from every body. Curtain rises again.) More attentions to pretty wife, repaid by more flirtation at her husband's expense. Finally FROU-FROU decides that LOUISE manages the household so admirably that misery must be the result. As a necessary consequence of this logical conclusion, she rushes out of the house with a gesture borrowed from RIP VAN WINKLE, and an expressed determination to elope.
Jocular Man remarks—"Now, then, CLARKE can go to Chicago, get a divorce, and marry LOUISE."
This practical suggestion is warmly reprobated by the ladies who overhear it, one of whom remarks with withering scorn—"Some people think it so smart to ridicule every thing. To my mind there is nothing more vulgar."
The Jocular Man, refusing to be withered, assures the Travelled Man confidentially that—"The play is frightful trash, and as for the acting, why, your little milliner in the Rue de la Paix could give MISS ETHEL any odds you please. "(Both look as though they remembered some delightfully improper Parisian dissipation, and in consequence rise rapidly in the estimation of the respectable ladies who are within hearing.)
After the orchestra has given specimens of every modern composer, the fourth act begins. FROU-FROU is found living at Venice with her lover. Her husband surprises her. He is pale and weak; but, returning her the amount of her dower, goes out to shoot the lover.
Rural Person announces as a startling discovery—"That's Miss AGNES ETHEL who's a-playin' FROW-FROW. Well, now, she ain't nothin' to LYDDY THOMPSON."
Jocular Man says to his Travelled Friend—"The idea of Miss ETHEL trying to act like a French-woman! Did you hear how she pronounced Monsieur?"
Travelled Man smiles weakly, conscious of the imperfections of his own pronunciation. To his dismay, the Sympathetic Young Lady asks—"What does that horrid man mean? How do you pronounce the word he talks about?"
Travelled Man, with desperation—"It ought to be pronounced m—m—m—" (ending in an inaudible murmur.)
"What? I didn't quite hear."
The Travelled Man will catch at a straw. He does so, and says—"Excuse me, but the curtain is rising."
FROU-FROU, in a dying state and a black dress, with her back-hair neatly arranged, is brought into her husband's house to die. He kneels at her feet. "You must not die. I am alone at fault. Forgive me sweet angel, and live." With the only gleam of good sense which she has yet shown, FROU-FROU refuses to live, and dropping her head heavily on the arm of the sofa, with a blind confidence that the thickness of her chignon will save her from a fractured skull, she peremptorily dies.
Subdued sobs from the audience, with the single exception of the Jocular Man, who says—"Well, if that's moral, I don't know what's immoral; and I did think I had lived long enough in Paris to know that."
With which opinion we heartily coincide, adding also the seriously critical remark that though Messrs. DAVIDGE and LEWIS play their comic parts with honest excellence, and though Mr. CLARKE is really a good actor in spite of his popularity with the ladies of the audience, Miss ETHEL, upon whom the whole play depends, is so obviously incompetent to personate a brilliant and spirituelle Parisienne that one wonders at the popularity of FROU-FROU. The majority of the audience are ladies. Can it be that they like the play because it teaches that the sins of a pretty woman should be condoned by her husband, provided she looks well with her back-hair down?
MATADOR.