TRUE APPRECIATION
(Overheard at the Theatre.)
Mrs. Parvenu: "I don't know that I'm exactly gorne on Shakespeare plays."
(Mr. P. agrees.)
In 1895 Punch waxed lyrical over Tree as Svengali and Miss Dorothea Baird in the title rôle of the dramatized version of Trilby. He bestowed the "highest order of histrionic merit" on Irving for his Corporal Brewster in Conan Doyle's Story of Waterloo, and, in the cartoon recording his knighthood, congratulated him in the name of the profession through the mouth of David Garrick. Pinero's play, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, is described as "a drama of inaction" owing to the length of the speeches, but praise is liberally bestowed on Hare, Forbes-Robertson and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. The popularity of a now forgotten work of advanced fiction—Keynotes, by "George Egerton"—is attested by Punch's perversion of the title of the piece into "The Key-note-orious Mrs. Ebbsmith." The revival of Romeo and Juliet served as the occasion for jest seasoned with shrewdness:—
Mrs. Patrick Campbell's "Juliet" takes the poison but not the cake. Her "Juliet" has over her the shadow of Paula Tanqueray.... Watching Forbes Robertson as "Romeo" I could not help thinking what an excellent "Hamlet" he would make; perhaps when I see him in that character I shall remember how good he was in "Romeo."
Cymbeline was the next of the Shakespearean revivals, and its production at the Lyceum, with Irving as Iachimo and Ellen Terry as Imogen, prompted eulogies of the performance and a burlesque of the plot. Mrs. Stirling (Lady Gregory), famous in her prime as Peg Woffington, incomparable in her old age as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, awakened gracious memories in Punch when she died at the close of 1895. Sir Augustus Harris was little more than half her age when his crowded and in the main prosperous life ended some six months later. The memorial verses to "Druriolanus," the ingenious agnomen of Punch's coining, render full justice to one who began as an indifferent melodramatic actor and ended as a successful impresario, and throughout served "amusement's motley world" with unfailing energy and resourcefulness. But to call him the Showman and Solon of the stage was at once to exaggerate his defects and his merits.
Mr. Henry Arthur Jones cannot be said to have been exactly a favourite with Punch in these years. Indeed, the title under which Punch habitually alluded to him—'Enery Author Jones—was the reverse of honorific. Yet in 1897 The Liars, with Charles Wyndham in the principal rôle, was cordially welcomed as "an exceptional play with the prospect of an exceptionally long run." Praise from such a source was praise indeed. The tragic death of William Terriss at the hand of a lunatic robbed melodrama of its brightest ornament, and Punch's memorial verses, though melodramatic in their emotion, are a faithful reflection of popular sentiment. Aladdin at Drury Lane impels Punch to pay a well-deserved compliment to Mr. Oscar Barrett for maintaining the best traditions of pantomime. From first to last it was "very funny without being in the least vulgar," and Punch's notice is embellished by an admirable portrait of Dan Leno as "The Second Mrs. Twankyray." In 1898 Rostand swam into our ken with Cyrano de Bergerac, but Punch took decidedly a minority view in crediting Coquelin with a "nasal victory over difficulties of his own choice." The author "had much to be thankful for," and the play is pronounced overweighted with verbiage which was neither brilliant nor helpful. Punch was much happier in his burlesques of Maeterlinck, "the Belgian Shakespeare," and the travesty of Hamlet, with "Ophelaine" and "Hamelette," and the dialogue, re-written in Ollendorffian sentences abounding in endless iteration, makes excellent reading, though perhaps eclipsed by the brilliant condensed American version of the same tragedy, in which prominence is assigned to the members of the Elsinore University Football Team. In 1899 the claims of the Celtic Drama begin to assert themselves, but Punch's "recipe" for the construction of this new type, founded on Mr. Martyn's play, The Heather Field, shows little sympathy for the aims or methods of the new school:—
Rostand and Maeterlinck