"Trilby" on the Stage
Mr. Paul M. Potter's dramatization of "Trilby" was produced by Mr. A. M. Palmer's company at the Boston Museum on Monday, 4 March, 1895, and achieved so great a success that several companies were immediately put upon the road to play it throughout the country. Its first production in New York, with the original cast, occurred at the Garden Theatre, on April 15. Hundreds of people were turned away from the door for want of room to accommodate them; and an offer was received from Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the eminent English actor, for the privilege of producing the play in England, where he himself wished to impersonate Svengali. It would be a pity if the Lyceum company did not secure the English rights; for Mr. Irving would make an inimitable Svengali, and Ellen Terry would be Trilby without trying.
As nobody has ever succeeded, or is likely to succeed, in really dramatizing a novel, it is not surprising that the stage version of "Trilby" should prove in some respects unsatisfactory. It might be thought that the book would lend itself readily to dramatic treatment; but a little consideration will show that it offers peculiar difficulties to the playwright, inasmuch as its chief charm is one of manner, which cannot be transferred to the stage, while its story, although it contains some striking situations, such as Trilby's collapse upon the death of Svengali, consists chiefly of a series of episodes, largely independent of each other and strung together very loosely. All things considered, Mr. Potter ought not, perhaps, to be held to too strict an account for the liberties he has taken with the text and some of the personages, but he has certainly lowered the tone of the work, and been guilty of various crudities of construction. There is some excuse for his employment of Svengali as the evil influence which wrecks the happiness of Little Billee and Trilby, but he leaves nothing of the author's original intention, and infinitely belittles the character of the girl, when he attributes her flight from her lover to mesmeric suggestion, instead of her own noble and unselfish devotion. In many other similar ways the spiritual side of the book suffers at his hands. His persistent references to Trilby's posing for the figure, his selection of that particular incident for her first introduction, and the joking references to it which he puts into the mouths of other personages, are in bad taste, while his travesty of the character of Dr. Bagot is entirely without justification. Mrs. Bagot he treats with more consideration, but he reduces her to the level of the dullest stage conventionality. Trilby herself preserves a good many of her characteristics, but is degraded even more than in the book by her subserviency to Svengali.
The play is in four acts, and the whole story up to the flight of Trilby is compressed into the first two. This feat is accomplished with no small ingenuity, but at great cost of probability. In this brief space Trilby is wooed and won, Svengali asserts his mesmeric power, the marriage of Little Billee is arranged and interrupted by the arrival of his mother, and an elopement is planned and frustrated. In the third act Trilby is to sing in the Cirque des Bashibazouck, and all the characters reassemble as if by magic in the foyer of that temple of art, which is abandoned of all other persons for their sole benefit. The proceedings which are supposed to occur in this retired spot are intrinsically absurd, but they are effective enough from a scenic and theatrical point of view, and were accepted by the audience, on the first night, as eminently natural and satisfactory. They culminate in the ghastly death of Svengali and the restoration of Trilby in a dazed and exhausted condition to the three faithful friends. In the fourth act there is another reunion of characters, and Trilby, who has agreed once more to marry Little Billee, and is supposed to be on the road to recovery, dies suddenly, upon the unexpected apparition of Svengali's photograph.
As it stands, the play is not much superior, if at all, to ordinary melodrama, being almost wholly void of the literary, humorous and personal charm of the book, but it is very well played, has a number of effective scenes, and is unquestionably popular. Miss Harned's Trilby, though rather a faint reflection of the original, has the merit of being attractive and womanly, as well as free and frank, and exhibits true pathos in the mesmeric scenes. On the whole, it is a very creditable impersonation. Mr. Lackaye's Svengali is overwrought but indisputably strong; and Burr McIntosh, John Glendenning and Alfred Hickman represent the three friends cleverly, and furnish excellent living pictures of du Maurier's sketches. Mr. Dietrichstein makes an admirable Zouzou, and all the minor parts are performed competently. A feature of the representation which is received with special favor is the Christmas merrymaking in the Latin Quarter, which is as vivacious and realistic as could be wished.
A matter of considerable interest to authors and publishers, for the copyright question involved, occurred in connection with the Boston performances. Elmer Chickering, the well-known photographer of Boston, took some pictures of Mr. A. M. Palmer's company, which naturally came into demand at once. But rushing over the wires came a message from Harper & Bros., saying that, as the characters were made up after du Maurier's drawings, they should regard the sale of any such pictures as an infringement of their copyright. To this, Mr. Chickering disagreed, on the ground that the photographs were not copies of any drawings, but of actual scenes on the stage, which any man might sketch. Telegrams flew back and forth, for the Messrs. Harper would not yield. Meanwhile, the papers sought for the photographs, and Mr. Palmer was apparently willing to receive the advertisement their publication would ensure; but the publishers still held off. At last Mr. Chickering decided to fight it out on his own line, for two of the New York papers printed some of the 160 "Trilby" pictures taken by him; and—as indicating an amicable adjustment of the dispute—a number of them appeared in Harper's Weekly.
The morning papers of April 30 contained this despatch:—"Denver, Col., April 29. Did du Maurier write 'Trilby'? This novel question was propounded to-day in the United States Court in good faith, when the suit of Harper & Bros. and A. M. Palmer for an injunction against the Lyceum Stock Company to restrain them from producing 'Trilby' at their theatre was called. The defendants allege that the book entitled 'Trilby' was not originated, invented or written by du Maurier. They assert that the original title and book of 'Trilby' were first published in France in 1820, and afterwards translated and published in English in 1847, and that the title and book have been common property for seventy-five years. The attorneys for the plaintiffs asked for time to communicate with their clients in New York as to the course they should pursue, and the Court postponed the hearing until Wednesday morning. Should the allegations of the Lyceum Company be true, a sensation will be caused all over the two continents. This is the first public intimation of an attack on the authenticity of the work, and if it is successful every company in the world will have as much right to play 'Trilby' as the Boston Organization."
The Lounger reprinted the telegram with this comment:—"Charles Nodier's 'Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail,' was published in Paris in 1822. It has just one thing in common with du Maurier's book—the first word in its title." The Sunday papers of May 12 printed this paragraph:—"Denver, May 11. Judge Hallet, in the United States District Court to-day, granted an injunction restraining the Lyceum Theatre from producing 'Trilby' hereafter, deciding that it infringed on the rights of Harper & Bros., and others. To-day's performance was stopped."
