It was an “idyll” of Frog Farm, near London, and Frog Farm seemed to be a trifle less amusing than Hunter’s Point, near New York. It introduced us to rural types of deadly monotony, among them being a “village patriarch,” suggesting cheap melodrama; a veterinary surgeon, a postman, a village dressmaker and Jinny herself, who “ran” a wagon, and who subsequently fell in love with a rival who tried to drive her out of the business. There were four acts of cumulative hopelessness, and by the time Jinny was ready to get married, the audience seemed just as ready to die of fatigue.
The humor was supplied by the village dressmaker, who owned a mustache, and who clamored for a depilatory! This pleasing, refined and frolicsome bit of originality failed to awaken people from their torpor. There was a good deal of talk about pigs and horses, while tea, cucumbers and marmalade graced the dialogue incessantly; but the amazed audience could not indorse this rural festival. Jinny, amid the pigs, horses, tea, cucumbers and marmalade, talked in Mr. Zangwill’s best style—a style replete with wordplay or pun—but her setting killed her, and she was soon “done for.”
Perhaps “Jinny the Carrier” was a joke. Who shall say? It is a bit “fishy”—I forgot to say that a real, dead fish was among the débris of this comedy—that two such bad plays as “Jinny the Carrier” and “The Serio-Comic Governess” honored New York to the exclusion of London. It is all very well to say that New York is so generous, so appreciative, so alive to all the good points of clever writers—it is all very well to say that, and sometimes it reads very well—but the fact remains that these plays had no good points. London would have laughed at them in immediate derision. We need feel no pride in the circumstance of their original production in New York. Instead, we should feel perfectly justified in feeling extremely sorry for ourselves. We might even say that both of these plays were foisted upon us in a spirit of “Oh, anything’s good enough for New York!”
I don’t say, and I don’t believe, that this was the reason we suffered from this Zangwill rubbish. Our ill luck was due to the fact that playwrights and plays, owing to the grinding theatrical dictatorship that has absolutely pulverized the healthy God-given spirit of competition, by which alone an Art can be kept alive, are few and far between. The manager takes what he can get, and he can get precious little, for the incentive is lacking. He is obliged to produce something, because he has an appalling list of theaters to fill. It is perfectly inconceivable that “Jinny the Carrier” should have been even rehearsed. It is a sheer impossibility that anybody could have anticipated success.
Miss Annie Russell, a sterling little artist, deserved all our sympathy. It was sad to see her in these surroundings, battling against the inevitable. Miss Russell can succeed with far less material than many actresses need. Give her half a fighting chance, and she is satisfied. It is pitiful to think of this clever young woman freighted with affairs like “Brother Jacques” and ”Jinny the Carrier,” but it was wonderful to watch her genuine efforts to do the very best she could. There can be nothing sadder in the life of an actress than this struggle with a forlorn hope. When that actress is intelligent, well-read, artistic and up-to-date, as Miss Annie Russell surely is, her plight is even more melancholy. One can scarcely view, in cold blood, this reckless waste of fine talent.
May I pause for a few moments, and say something about the Hippodrome?
The Hippodrome was such a stupendous affair, and its opening took place at such a singularly opportune moment, that a wave of enthusiasm swept over this island. Every dramatic critic in town went to the opening of the Hippodrome, while many of them crept into the “dress rehearsal,” in order to get their adjectives manicured and be ready to rise to the occasion. This in itself was quite unique. As a colossal American achievement, the Hippodrome loomed. It combined spectacle, ballet, specialties, acting, singing, novelty.
In its ballet, particularly, it invited and received the admiration of every lover of art. Nothing more beautiful than “The Dance of the Hours” has delighted the eyes and the ears of this metropolis, that fell in love, at first sight, with its magnificent staging, as the excuse for the lovely music of “La Gioconda.” The Metropolitan Opera House never offered anything so sumptuous. It appealed irresistibly to the artistic instinct. It exploded the fatuous policy that causes the appearance in this city of those senseless, antiquated spectacles—food for neither adult nor juvenile—known as “Drury Lane pantomime,” a form of entertainment that in its native land has begun to languish.
The ballet at the Hippodrome was a revelation, for this city has never taken kindly to ballet, probably for the reason that it has never seen one of genuine artistic merit. A capital performance entitled “A Yankee Circus in Mars” was not a bit less “dramatic” than the alleged comic operas and tiresome musical comedies that have afflicted us with such drear persistence, and it was certainly infinitely more plausible. It had novelty, sensational features and a superb equipment. In addition to all this, there was a wonderful aquatic arrangement, in which the huge stage suddenly sank and gave place to an imposing body of water, wet and ready to receive the plunging horses and riders, as they swam across in the pursuit of their dramatic story.
Two young men, Messrs. Thompson and Dundy, newcomers among the jaded and throttled amusement purveyors of the big city, were responsible for all this, and the greatest credit is due to their “nerve” as well as to their astonishing executive ability. The enterprise at first seemed like some amazing “pipe-dream,” from which there must be a rude awakening, but the opening of the Hippodrome was such a bewildering success, and so unanimously acclaimed, that the croakers were silenced. One of these was exceedingly amusing. He had declared that the Hippodrome must fail. Its colossal results, however, so overwhelmed him that he forthwith announced his belief that New York would patronize two Hippodromes, and his intention of building a second.