A POLITE LITTLE PLAY.
Never raise your voice, my dear Gerald. That is the only thing left to distinguish us from the lower classes. Lord Wynlea in "The Best People".
The new comedy at the Lyric Theatre is written in accordance with Lord Wynlea's dictum quoted above. It is mannerly, well poised, ingratiating and deft. As a minor effort in the high comedy style it is welcome, because it affords a respite from the "plays with a punch" and the prevalent boisterous specimens of the work of yeomen who go at the art of dramatic writing with main strength.
"The Best People" is by Frederick Lonsdale and Frank Curzen, who manifestly know some of them. It was done at Wyndham's Theatre in London, and we think that in a comfortable English playhouse, with tea between acts and leisurely persons with whom to visit in the foyer, it would make an agreeable matinee. Certainly it is admirably acted here, and, as has been intimated, its quiet drollery and its polite maneuvering make it a relief.
Whether American audiences, used to stronger fare than tea at the theatre, will find it sustaining is a question that would seem to be answered by the announcement, just received from the Lyric, that the engagement closes next Saturday evening.
The fable relates how the Honorable Mrs. Bayle discovered that her husband and Lady Ensworth had been flirting with peril during her absence in Egypt, how she blithely threw them much together, with the result that they grew intensely weary of each other, and how at last everybody concerned was happily and sensibly reconciled.
The spirit of the piece is sane and "nice," the decoration of it whimsical and graceful.
Miss Lucille Watson, embodying the spirit of witty mischief, gives a very fine performance of the part of Mrs. Bayle, a "smart," good woman, and Miss Ruth Shepley is excellent in byplay and flutter as a silly, good woman.
Cyril Scott is graceful and vigorous as a philandering husband, Dallas Anderson comical as a London clubman with a keener relish in life than he is willing to betray, and William McVey wise, paternal and weighty in that kind of a part.
"The Best People" is a pleasant spring fillip.