The Incidental Song with Guitar Accompaniment, sung by Mr. Avon Saxon, has been kindly composed by
SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.
THE NEW SCENERY PAINTED BY MR. HARFORD.
Probably few who were present on this occasion will need to be reminded of the impression made upon the audience by the new play, or of the plaudits with which it was greeted. The success that attended the initial representation was echoed for the most part in the chorus of criticism. On all sides the new play was greeted with warm words of welcome, even when these words were qualified by serious critical strictures; the pessimists regarded it at least as an oasis in the desert of our modern drama, while the optimists hailed it as the herald of a bright new era of English dramatic literature. The various voices of criticism were, in fact, unanimous for once in regarding this as an artistic event of quite unusual importance, even while they were raised to question certain psychological and ethical elements of the play in relation to actual human experience.
It does not come within my province here to discuss the several points of controversy, the various critical objections urged against the play, but merely to recall them as a matter of theatrical history. So be it remembered that the central motive of the story was condemned as being fantastically strained, for the simple reason that at this end of the nineteenth century the mental condition of Leslie Brudenell was inconceivable, the position therefore being untenable from the point of view of real life. It was further urged that any right-minded young wife would have submissively accepted the situation in the true wisdom of modern cynicism, or that Dunstan Renshaw would have turned round upon her and with brutal frankness revealed to her that her disillusioning was only the common experience of all wives, and that she must bow to the inevitable and make no fuss. It was laid down as law moreover that, as a leopard cannot change its spots, so can no man who has once lived evilly be influenced to a better, a purer life; that profligate once, profligate he must remain for evermore. Then Hugh Murray, the serious-minded, lofty-natured lawyer, who can never restrain his tongue when he sees wrong-doing, but can be nobly, piteously silent when he must bury his love deep down in his lonely life until it nearly breaks the heart of him—he was found by certain critics to be impossibly unreal and even comic. It was discovered, too, that the office of Messrs. Cheal and Murray was in Furnival’s Inn, Fairyland—that such proceedings as were witnessed in that office could never have been possible in Holborn.
Those who made all these discoveries charged “The Profligate” on this score or that with being untrue to nature or false to art. Yet Mr. Pinero, in essaying to deal dramatically with a moral problem in a manner which, while neither cynical nor commonplace, should still be in touch with human sympathy and possible experience, appears to have deliberately set himself to conceive a group of characters, natural yet not ordinary, which should embody his ideals, and with a sufficient sense of actuality evolve the tragic recoil of sin, the dramatic pathos of innocence in contact with the irony of life, the exquisite influence of purity. Whether Mr. Pinero succeeded in carrying out his idea or not, even the severest of his critics could not deny this play respectful consideration. “A real play at last,” cried one; “a faulty play with one faultless act,” was another’s summing-up after his first enthusiasm had cooled in the refrigerator of time; while yet a third recorded that “no original English play produced on our stage for many a day has stirred its audience so deeply at the time of its representation, or has sent them home with so much to think over, to discuss and to remember.”
“The Profligate” was performed eighty-six consecutive times at the Garrick Theatre with considerable success, and, as I believe some impression to the contrary prevails, I may be pardoned for adding, with results very satisfactory to Mr. Hare’s treasury. The season coming to an end on July 27, the Garrick closed, and Mr. Hare took “The Profligate” on a brief provincial tour. At the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, Birmingham, on September 2, it was received with extraordinary enthusiasm, the local critics poured forth eulogy upon eulogy, and for the next five nights the house was crammed. From Birmingham the play went to Manchester, where it was produced at the Theatre Royal, on September 9, and performed there nine times. But the Manchester critics, though respectful in their attitude, were sparing in their praise. They complained that Mr. Pinero was neither Dumas nor Augior, compared him with Georges Ohnet, and found fault with his metaphors. And the playgoers of Cottonopolis were depressed, and bestowed such scant favour upon the play that Mr. Hare determined to occupy the last three nights of his engagement with a mirthful adaptation of “Les Surprises du Divorce,” and the Manchester folk then attended the theatre in their numbers, and laughed, and were happy again.
A triumph, however, was in store for “The Profligate” at Liverpool. On September 23, and during the rest of the week, it was given at the Shakespeare Theatre, and press and public alike greeted Mr. Pinero’s play with acclaim. Then Mr. Hare returned to town with his company, and reopened the Garrick with “The Profligate” on Wednesday, October 2. Again was criticism busy with the play, and the praise of some had cooled, and the praise of others had warmed, but the original “run” of the play had been interrupted in the midst of its prosperity, Mr. Hare had resigned his part to an actor of less influence and distinction, and after forty-five more performances it was thought politic to withdraw the play. The notable fact remains, however, that while theatrical audiences were still being encouraged to expect “comic relief” and melodramatic sensation, a serious English drama, which made no concession to either, had been performed one hundred and fifty-three times within a few months, with profit to author and to manager.
But although “The Profligate” had been withdrawn from the boards of the theatre, its influence was still active. It commanded a hearing beyond the footlights, even on the platform of the Literary and Scientific Institute. Mr. Pinero was invited by the committee of the Birkbeck Institution to read his play there, and this he did on the evening of May 16th, 1890, with such marked success that he has since been invited to repeat the reading at many of the leading institutions in the provinces.