In the auction room the season was uneventful even before hostilities commenced and later there was so little doing that Messrs. Christie did not reopen their rooms in the autumn, according to custom. The Grenfell sale was the most important. It included the portrait by Titian for which the collector paid 30,000l. a few years earlier, and now, under the hammer, realised £13,650. Other pictures sold in the spring and summer included a Peter de Hoogh (at Messrs. Robinson & Fisher's) for 8,200 guineas; a Gainsborough landscape, 7,000 guineas, and a portrait of a lady in white by the same artist which fetched a similar price; and a portrait by Lawrence, 5,600 guineas. The price paid for the de Hoogh was a record; and another auction room record was made when Valentine Green's mezzotint of Sir Joshua's portrait of Lady Betty Delmé was sold from the Northwick collection for 1,750 guineas.
W. T. Whitley.
II. DRAMA.
The drama of the year 1914 falls, like every kindred subject, into two sharply defined parts: the first, seven months of normal conditions; the second, five months of conditions not only abnormal but absolutely unparalleled. It is difficult to believe that any branch of art can have suffered more severely than the drama during these later months. No doubt, in times to come, this European war will furnish material for innumerable plays, good, bad, and indifferent; it will be treated, dramatically, from every point of view, as long as the world lasts; but while we are actually engaged in the struggle the chief incidents inseparable from a "war-play" are almost too poignant to be reproduced; artistic values are lost sight of in an overpoweringly painful impression. On the other hand, the average "drawing-room play"—to say nothing of the "problem play"—has been reduced to triviality by the readjustment of the public sense of proportion; domestic quarrels and social theories are shorn of their interest. Lastly, apart from sentimental or intellectual considerations, the darkening of the streets at night, and the all-pervading need for the reduction of personal expenses, have had disastrous results. There is reason to hope that the lowest ebb has now been reached, and that, even if the war should be prolonged, public tension cannot be kept always at the extreme pitch of the past autumn; but for the moment, the post of dramatic critic can be little more than a sinecure.
To deal first with those plays which enjoyed ordinary chances of success or failure, the year up to August had presented no very striking features. Perhaps the greatest promise of novelty was offered by Sir Herbert Tree's production of "Pygmalion," a new play by Bernard Shaw (His Majesty's, April 11). The prospect of seeing Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs. Patrick Campbell in first-rate comedy parts was inspiriting; but, frankly, it must be owned that the work was not of Mr. Shaw's best, and that the splendour of His Majesty's is less suited to his methods than the intimacy of the Court or the Little Theatre. The author may possibly have felt that the subtle effects of "Candida," or of "John Bull's Other Island," would be lost in so much space; what is certain is that in "Pygmalion" the humour is far more obvious—one might almost say crude—than in the earlier plays. Sir Herbert Tree as the "professor of phonetics" who undertakes the education of a Cockney flower-girl, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell as his pupil, did full justice to their parts, each proving once again a gift of comedy too often neglected. Mr. Edmund Gurney, as a London dustman—father of the flower-girl—was the chief vehicle of Mr. Shaw's opinions, and expressed himself effectively, though at inordinate length.
A clever, though in some respects painful, play was "The Land of Promise," by Somerset Maughan (Duke of York's, February 26). The heroine, an English girl of good family, is forced to emigrate to Canada, where she finds herself incapable of earning a living, and marries a back-woodsman, whom, after some severe experiences, she learns to love. The process of "breaking her in" is partly conducted by brute force, and made the audience feel at times like eavesdroppers of the worst description; an impression much heightened by the really admirable acting of Mr. Godfrey Tearle and Miss Irene Vanbrugh in the principal parts. Indeed, Miss Vanbrugh won more sympathy for "Norah" than the character by right demanded; her personal distinction made us believe in the gentle breeding of Mr. Maughan's heroine, even while we felt that this very refinement would have taught her that the washing of cups and saucers is in itself a less degrading occupation than fighting and wrangling between husband and wife. The subordinate parts were well written and acted, especially those of Norah's peace-loving brother and shrewish sister-in-law.
"My Lady's Dress," by Edward Knoblauch (Royalty, April 21), showed an original idea, but one exceptionally difficult of treatment. The author's aim was to show—as a rebuke to vanity and extravagance—each stage in the creation of a triumph in dressmaking. We saw, among other episodes, the silk weavers toiling at the loom, in Lyons; the trapper in Siberia; and the cripple girl making artificial flowers in a London slum. Last, but not least, we were taken behind the scenes in the establishment of a famous man-milliner, who tyrannised with fiendish cruelty over the unfortunate mannequins. These scenes, some half-dozen in all, were linked together by a slender thread of story, but each might stand as a complete one-act play, with a distinct list of characters. In each, the chief parts were taken by Miss Gladys Cooper and Mr. Dennis Eadie, who thus appeared in six or seven different rôles in the course of an evening. The scenes were, naturally, of very varying merit; taken altogether, it may be said that the most dramatic was the episode of the Provençal peasants, who stake their fortunes upon silkworms. With regard to the acting, Miss Cooper succeeded best in the pathetic part of the flower-maker; and Mr. Eadie as the bully of the show-rooms.
Among the new works produced by well-known dramatists are "Plaster Saints," by Israel Zangwill (Comedy, Feb. 5), which had a career of some months; "The Clever Ones," by Alfred Sutro (Wyndham's, April 23), a comedy on somewhat obvious lines; "The Dangerous Age," by H. V. Esmond (Vaudeville, May 5); and "Outcast," by Hubert Henry Davies (Wyndham's, September 1). Mr. Stephen Phillips' blank verse drama, "The Sin of David," courageously produced by Mr. H. B. Irving (Savoy, June 9), proved no more successful than other like ventures in recent years. Adaptations from novels included "Helen with the High Hand," by Richard Pryce, and Arnold Bennett (Vaudeville, Feb. 17); and "The Impossible Woman," by Haddon Chambers, from Miss Anne Sidgwick's novel "Tante" (Haymarket, Sept. 8). This last should, if produced in happier times, have had a longer career, although the delicacy of Miss Sidgwick's character drawing can scarcely be altogether reproduced on the stage.
Shakespearean revivals have numbered no more than three: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (Savoy, Feb. 6); "Henry IV.," Part I. (His Majesty's, Nov. 3); and "Henry V." (Mr. Benson's company). Some surprise and perhaps a little disappointment were felt at Mr. Granville Barker's choice of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as the successor to "Twelfth Night." Few of Shakespeare's plays offer more difficulties to the stage-manager, or give less scope for the greatest acting. It was even rumoured that these same difficulties were the attraction, and that the revival was in the nature of a tour-de-force, undertaken in reply to a challenge. In any case, Mr. Barker, if he did not triumph over all obstacles, might be trusted to avoid certain obvious pitfalls. His fairies were in no way reminiscent of pantomime; his Oberon was not a "principal boy" but a well-grown young man (Mr. Dennis Neilson-Terry); above all, his clowns were human and delightful, without a touch of exaggeration. The grouping of the fairy scenes was exquisite, and the forest background among the most beautiful ever seen on the stage. The fantastic element, however, was on some points overdone, as in the gilding of the fairies' faces; while the figure of Puck (Mr. Donald Calthrop) in scarlet clothes and a flaxen wig, was more grotesque than supernatural. The acting honours rested decidedly with the clowns; Mr. Arthur Whitby as Quince once more proved himself the first Shakespearean comic actor of the day.
The two later revivals—"Henry IV.," Part I., and "Henry V."—were a response to the patriotic enthusiasm called forth by the war. Sir Herbert Tree's Falstaff, and Mr. Benson's Henry V., are both too well known to require much comment. Sir Herbert, as we cannot but think, is still inclined to take the part too slowly; the tavern scenes all alike suffered from a certain heaviness, the result of over-elaboration in by-play and scenic effects. The tableau of the battle of Shrewsbury should have been entirely omitted; it was not only ineffective in itself, but it interrupted the action of the play at a crucial moment, and so lessened the effect of the later scenes. As to the innovations in the caste, Mr. Basil Gill showed great rhetorical power in the difficult part of the King; and Mr. Owen Nares was an ideal Prince Hal in appearance, though he did not, in all respects, give the character quite its full value. Mr. Matheson Lang's rendering of Hotspur must, unfortunately, be confessed inadequate; it was inclined to be ponderous rather than fiery, and was further marred by the assumption of an unnecessary and irritating stammer. Whether Sir Herbert Tree or Mr. Lang was responsible for putting this construction on the reference to Percy's "speaking thick," we cannot pretend to say; but surely it may be taken for granted that if Shakespeare had intended his Hotspur to stammer aggressively in the delivery of blank verse he would have given some more definite instruction to that effect.