From the diminutive to the enormous leads us easily in the direction of that tremendous combination of high spirits and massive corporeality, Miss Alice Fischer. This actress, who has been before the public for a good many years, may be looked upon as one of those curious metropolitan figures that have acquired more popularity off the stage than on it. Miss Fischer has dominated feminine clubs, has associated herself with “movements,” and has posed as advocating a National Theater, even while she did a dance every night in a classic gem entitled “Piff, Paff, Pouf!” She has “starred” occasionally, but never with much success. As a “good fellow” and a delightful acquaintance, Miss Fischer has always been unsurpassed. This rôle, not unusual among men, is unique among women.
Possibly you have heard of actors noted as wits, good fellows, bons-vivants and horse show figures. Their apparent popularity has invariably led you to believe that a “starring” venture would be stupendously successful—that their legions of friends would gather round them, and “whoop” them toward fortune. Such, it has frequently been proved, has not been the case. That cold, critical, money’s-worth-hungry assemblage known as the “general public” has intervened, after a rousing “first-night” that has seemed like a riot of enthusiasm, and has stamped its disapproval upon the proceedings. Some of the strangest failures on the stage have been achieved by those who were brilliantly successful off the stage.
Hitherto this has been the fate of Miss Fischer. Many admired her, but that many were not included in the general public, that has no pronounced predilection for club men or club women. Fortunately—and it is a great pleasure to announce it—in her latest venture at Wallack’s Theater, a new old comedy, and a clever one, by Stanislaus Stange, called “The School for Husbands,” Miss Alice Fischer succeeded not only with her friends, but with the great unknown. She proved herself to be an actress of exceeding vitality and force, and she made not only a popular but an artistic hit.
Of course she was bound to do it sooner or later. We may not have indorsed her previous productions, but we always liked Miss Fischer, with her bouncing good nature, her intelligent outlook, her curious untrammeled demeanor, always suggestive of a huge schoolgirl suddenly let loose; her capital elocution and her agreeable way of insistently seeming at home. In “The School for Husbands,” these qualities appeared quite relevantly. This strange season, now over, which has snuffed out so many poor, feeble little stars, has been very kind to Miss Fischer. She “came into her own.”
Mr. Stange’s play was an amusing comedy, dealing with domestic infelicity—of the tit-for-tat order—in the “old” style. That is to say, it did not flaunt in our faces a fracture of the seventh commandment, or drag in a series of epigrams modeled upon those of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld and Oscar Wilde. Mr. Stange went in for what we call the “artificial,” but it all occurred in 1720. The eighteenth century covers a multitude of sins that are naked and unashamed in the twentieth. We were disarmed in our frenzied analysis when we were confronted with such purely imaginary and entertaining types as Sir John and Lady Belinda Manners, Lady Airish, Lady Speakill, Lady Tattle, Lord Foppington and Lord Drinkwell.
We were back again amid the “old comedy” characters, of whom we always talk with sycophantic admiration. Sometimes we loathe them, but we never say so. There has been a sporadic revival of one or two of these “old comedies” this season, accomplished with that “bargain-counter” atrocity—a sop for vulgar minds—known mischievously as the “all-star-cast.” It has been amusing to watch the cold, dispiriting and almost clammy reception accorded to these “classics,” compared with the cordiality extended to Miss Alice Fischer in her “imitation” classic, “The School for Husbands.” Yet, if a well-read, modern playwright cannot improve upon the eighteenth century, with his sublime knowledge of all that has occurred since—then he must indeed be rather small potatoes.
Mr. Stange made these improvements. While the revived work of the late Oliver Goldsmith and Dion Boucicault languished, the “old comedy” of the twentieth century triumphed. If you saw it, you will understand why. There were episodes in “The School for Husbands” that were very clever and enlivening. All the characters were puppets, but they danced with the latest electric improvements, and their gyrations entertained. Blood they certainly lacked, but nobody cared. It was a relief to watch this amusing but thoroughly refined tomfoolery, and to know that no problem lurked beneath it. It was the Eden Musée, suddenly galvanized into life and pirouetting in all its color and brilliancy.
With Arthur Forrest, who is a fine, distinguished, subtle, convincing actor; with Miss Grace Filkins, Jameson Lee Finney and Mrs. Ida Jeffreys-Goodfriend, Miss Fischer managed to beat any “all-star-cast”—the refuge of the destitute. The star herself was so irresistible, so dominant and so largely vital, that hundreds of people who had merely heard of Alice Fischer were glad to meet her. This “venture” firmly established her, and the establishment was conducted by such legitimate means that the event was unusually interesting.
Oh, I’m tired of stars. I am—I am! Last month I devoted myself almost exclusively to them, and now I find that the cry is still “they come, they come!” To be sure, Miss Marie Tempest and Miss Alice Fischer both achieved success, but now I see before me the plaintive figure of poor little Miss Annie Russell, who didn’t. Miss Russell came to the Criterion Theater with a Zangwill play. It sounds well, doesn’t it?—but I can assure you that the sound was most misleading.
Nothing quite so drab, so despondently dreary, or so damply dismal as “Jinny the Carrier” ever asked for a hearing and got it. Zangwill has lectured upon the drama, and paid pungent respect to its incongruities, but he has proved himself to be infinitely worse than the various playwrights whom he ridiculed. “The Serio-Comic Governess,” thrust upon Miss Cecilia Loftus, was bad enough, but “Jinny the Carrier” went far below it, and stayed there all the time.