Oddly enough, it is said that Madame Le Bargy had never been in London before, and that she had acquired English in France. In which case, I would suggest that half a dozen popular New York actresses—I won’t mention names—should sail for France at an early date, and see if they could learn English there. It is as difficult to acquire in London as it is in New York.
“The Man of the Moment” was saved from rapid extinction by the little Gymnase actress. It had four acts, through two of which you could have slept comfortably while various alleged French characters sat round drawing rooms and talked endlessly about nothing whatsoever. Then, in the third act, you learned that Marianne Darlay, the wife of Maurice, had been lured to infidelity by a dark gentleman named Langlade. As she still loved her husband, and didn’t love Langlade, this little escapade failed entirely to interest. The “great scene” occurred when the wife gave herself away to the husband, and the play ended with a vista of divorce. Divorce, in real life, may be a serenely satisfactory settlement of domestic wrangles, but on the stage its unromantic practicality has not yet succeeded in appealing, except in farce. “The Man of the Moment” had no dramatic action, and no movement of any sort. You were unable to sympathize with the woman, or to feel much interest in the man. In fact, “The Man of the Moment” must have been so-called because he had none.
Capus in French is always exhilarating. The “chatter” is refreshing and genuinely amusing, but translated into English, it seemed extremely dull. Mr. Melvill did poor Capus into the sort of language that is encountered in burlesque at little Mr. Weber’s music hall. The result was fatal. Yet, in addition to Madame Le Bargy’s very excellent work, there was George Alexander, whose efforts were most praiseworthy. He seemed perfectly satisfied to take what was assuredly second place in the cast. “The Man of the Moment” was beautifully put on, as is every production at the St. James Theater. George Alexander is one of the few London actors who have not been to the United States within the last decade—in fact, he has never been, except as a member of Irving’s forces, many years ago—and the abstinence seems to agree with him. He does more, and he does it more luxuriously, than the traveling English actor whom we have seen so often. Perhaps it is true, after all, that a rolling stone gathers no moss—though I should hate to believe that there could possibly be anything in a popular proverb.
While one little foreign actress was capturing London by her clever manipulation of London’s language, others were not as happy. Eleanora Duse’s season at the Messrs. Shubert’s new Waldorf Theater, in the new street called Aldwych, on the Strand, must have been very discouraging to the haughty lady herself. In fact, it is asserted that she will never again appear in England. Half-filled houses are something that must be distressing to the “artistic temperament,” and Duse played to a most elongated series of them. Few people seemed to know that she was in London. In New York we, in our occasionally provincial appreciation of an actress whom we are unable to understand—and probably because we can’t understand her—go into ecstasies over Duse, and pack the theater to overflowing. London is too sophisticated. Duse made no stir at all this time. Even the critics gave her but merely polite attention. Possibly in English she could charm the English-speaking world. But, save in the case of Madame Simone Le Bargy, nobody seems to think that worth while. Perhaps it isn’t.
As for the tireless Sarah—she gets on one’s nerves. After a brief season at the Coronet Theater, in Notting Hill, where she produced her own version of “Adrienne Lecouvreur,” and Victor Hugo’s “Angelo”—which fell flat as a pancake—Sarah rushed through the English provinces with Mrs. Patrick Campbell, in their freak performance of “Pelleas and Melisande.” In a manufacturing town, like Birmingham, for instance, Maeterlinck, at advanced prices, seemed like some ghastly joke! Sarah visits England annually, in a veritable desperation of energy, but it is very seldom worth her while. This year she was less interesting than Madame Le Bargy; and the same may be said of Réjane.
I had not been in London very long before I found myself battling with the musical comedy whirlpool. It hedged me in; panic-stricken, I tried to get myself free. A dreadful sensation of helplessness overcame me. In a condition of numbed protest, I was carried along with the torrent, and it was a long time before I finally emerged. My system being impoverished and quite run down by a strenuous musical-comedy dose in New York, I was not in the state of mind to render the continued ordeal endurable.
Yet a very estimable gentleman, Max Beerbohm, who is supposed to write fantasy, whimsicality or oddity, has undertaken to champion musical comedy. The championship of “Max,” however, is a sort of “swan song” for musical comedy. He says: “Were musical comedy other than it is, the highest intellects in the land would be deprived of an incomparable safety valve. And what would become of that ‘fifty millions—mostly fools’—who find in musical comedy an art-form conducted precisely on the level of their understanding? I have no sympathy at all with the growls so constantly emitted by professional critics of this art-form. Of course musical comedy might be made a vehicle for keen satire, for delicate humor, for gracious lyricism, and what not. But I prefer that it should remain as it is. Let us continue to cry aloud for a serious drama, by all means, but long live mere silliness in mere entertainment.”
One could almost regret that this writer had no “job” in New York City as a “press agent.” He writes with such verve on topics of which he is avowedly ignorant, for at the beginning of his defense, he says: “Nor do I ever see a musical comedy of my own accord.” That is it. That is precisely it. It is so easy to speak of an “art-form,” or an “incomparable safety valve,” when you’d run a mile or jump into anything to avoid it.
There are four musical-comedy productions in London that a sheer sense of duty compelled me to see. Such a list! It was unescapable. No self-deception or hypocrisy could possibly excuse a traveling critic from sampling this quartet. One can always elude a solitary performance, for it proves nothing and makes no point. But four of a kind at one fell swoop! Surely, if four West End theaters can devote themselves irrevocably to this “art-form,” one has no right to balk, or to look the other way. The four affairs in question are “The Little Michus,” at Daly’s, “Lady Madcap,” at the Prince of Wales’, “The Spring-Chicken,” at the Gaiety, and “The Catch of the Season,” at the Vaudeville. Three of them are scheduled for production in New York, but I should say that one only has a fighting chance, and that “The Catch of the Season.”
It had the usual array of sponsor-meddlers—two for the pieces, one for the lyrics, two for the music; and its aim is higher than that of the conventional brand, for it is a modernization of the Cinderella story—a story that has never shown any sign of age, and probably never will. Nobody has tried to do anything clever with Cinderella. There is no satire, very little humor and nothing in the least skittish. It is just pretty, and at this Vaudeville Theater it is Miss Ellaline Terriss, London’s sample Christmas card beauty, who does the Cinderella act. It is not necessary to say very much more about “The Catch of the Season.” Its music is trivial, and its book is worse. But its specialties please, and one can sit through this little entertainment without that sense of degradation that the brand sometimes induces. That is a good deal. For New York many alterations will be made—I write in the future tense, though when these lines are read, they can be translated into the past—and I hope a happy one—new music will be introduced, and Miss Edna May placed in Ellaline Terriss’ dainty shoes.