A third put in a word for Romeo and Juliet. "Of course, in all his serious work, Shakespeare is a most irritating writer. But in Romeo and Juliet he is less irritating than usual. I like the Tomb scene."
The Irish voice replied that the English had the ballad instinct, and liked those stories which would be tolerable in a ballad; but that intellectual eminence was shown by form, not by an emotional condition. This led to the obvious English retort that form was nothing, as long as the thought was all right; and that anyway our construction was better than the French. The talk closed in on the discussion, shutting it out with babble; nothing more was heard.
The two friends, sipping Perrier water, were sensible of hostility in the house, without hearing definite charges. An electric bell whirred overhead. Glasses were hurriedly put down; cigarettes were dropped into the pots of evergreens. The tide set back towards the stalls. As they paused to let a lady precede them down a gangway, they heard her pass judgment to a friend.
"Of course, it may be very clever; but what I mean is that it's not amusing. It's not like a play."
A clear feminine voice dropped a final shot in a hush. "Oh, I think it's tremendously second-rate; like all his books. I think he must be a most intolerable young man. I know some friends of his."
Wondering which friends they were, Roger Naldrett took his seat in his box an instant before the curtain rose.
Four minutes later, when the house found that the cap fitted, a line was hissed loudly. It passed, the actors rallied, Miss Hanlon's acting gathered intensity. As the emotional crisis of the act approached, she seemed to be taking hold of the audience. The beauty of the play even moved the author a little. Then, at her finest moment, in a pause, the prelude to her great appeal, a coarse female voice, without natural beauty, and impeded rather than helped, artificially, by a segment of apple newly-bitten, called ironically, "Ow, chyce me," from somewhere far above. The temper of the house as a whole was probably against the voice; but collective attention is fickle. There was a second of hesitation, during which, though the play went on, the audience wondered whether they should laugh, following the titterers, or say "Sh" vigorously in opposition to them. A big man in the stalls decided them, by letting his mirth, decently checked during the instant, explode, much as an expanded bladder will explode when smitten with a blunt instrument.
"Ow, Charlie!" cried the voice again. Everybody laughed. The big man, confirmed in what had at first alarmed him, roared like a bull. When the laughter ended, the play was lost. No acting in the world could have saved it.
For a moment it went on; but the wits had been encouraged by their success. A few mild young men, greatly daring, bashfully addressed questions to the stage in self-conscious voices. Whistles sounded suddenly in shrill bursts. Somebody hissed in the stalls. A line reflecting on England's foreign policy, or seeming to do so, for there is nothing topical in good literature, raised shouts of "Yah," and "Pro-Boer," phrases still shouted at advanced thinkers in moments of popular pride. At the most poignant moment of the tragedy the gallery shouted "Boo" in sheer anger. The stalls, excited by the noise, looked round, and up, smiling. Songsters began one of the vile songs of the music-halls, debased in its words, its rhythms, and its tune. Their feet beat time to it. The booing made a monotony as of tom-toms; whistles and cat-calls sounded, like wild-birds flying across the darkness. People got up blunderingly to leave the theatre, treading on other people's toes, stumbling over their knees, with oaths in their hearts, and apologies on their lips. The play had come to an end. The cast waited for the noise to cease. Miss Hanlon, the sword at her throat, stood self-possessed, ready with her line and gesture, only waiting for quiet. Two of the actors talked to each other, looking straight across the stage at the dim mob before them. Roger could see their lips move. He imagined the cynical slangy talk passing between them. He recognised Miss Hanlon's sister standing in one of the boxes on the other side.
The noise grew louder. John O'Neill, leaving his seat, came over to him and shouted in his ear. "You're having a fine row," he shouted.