COURT OUT!
What is an "Original Farcical Romance"? The immediate reply is that The Amazons, by Mr. Pinero, is a specimen of the genus. To see The Amazons ought to supply the terms of the required definition. I have seen it, and yet the definition does not satisfy me. "Original"! Well—more or less; but to use old materials in a novel manner is quite enough for originality. The girl brought up as a boy is not absolutely new or original, vide Tom Noddy's Secret, and multiply the heroine of that farce by three. The three men hunting after the three girls and obtaining access to them at school—substituting, in this case, home for school, and a mother for a school-mistress—is not absolutely new or original; but, again, what matters this to anyone, so long as the new shape given to the old material is genuinely amusing? So "farcical" goes with "original." But now, as to its being a "Romance?" Would not the term "burlesque" be a better term than "Farcical Romance?"
One of the Points of the Piece. The Queen of the Amazons gets the Needle.
The characters of the three adventurous lovers are not less burlesque than were those of the three Knights in Albert Smith's romantic Extravaganza, The Alhambra, played then by Alfred Wigan, and Mr. and Mrs. Keeley. So if I may take it that "Farcical Romance" is only a way out of describing the piece as "burlesque," then I know how to class it, and what to expect. Now I must own that my puzzlement is due to my own fault, for it so chanced that I did not look at the author's description of his play until after leaving the theatre. I thought I was seeing something that was intended to be as broad a farce as Bébé, alias Betsy, but I soon found that, whatever it might be, it wasn't this. It is capitally acted by all, but especially, on "the Spear Side," by Mr. Weedon Grossmith and F. Kerr, the former as an effeminate Earl, and the latter as a manly Viscount. But, even from a burlesque point of view, Mr. Elliot overdoes the Frenchman, a part which belongs to a stage-family of Frenchmen, of which, in former times, Alfred Wigan was the best representative; and, later, Mons. Marius, who, as the French sporting nobleman, in Family Ties, in love with an English "Mees," and so proud of his English slang, was simply the character to the life, without any more exaggeration than was artistically necessary. On "the Spindle Side," Miss Lily Hanbury looks handsome, and is generally fairly well-suited; Miss Pattie Browne has the most difficult part of the three, and it is not to be wondered at if she a bit out-tommies Tommy. Miss Ellaline Terris looks, acts, and sings charmingly as Lady Wilhelmina, and Miss Caldwell gives a good touch of low comedy to "the Sergeant."
The places where the fun comes in, as it does occasionally, and is therefore the more precious, are chiefly with Weedon Grossmith, and in the scenes between Mr. F. Kerr and Miss Hanbury. The piece is not up to the former "screamers," such as Dandy Dick, The Magistrate, and My Aunt, or whatever was the title of the farce in which Mr. Weedon Grossmith played the part of Mrs. John Wood's solicitor. The scenery by Mr. Hall is Hall good, specially the woodland scene in Overcote Park.
"We loathe Music."
"Much Ado About Nil."—Were the Temporal Power in existence, the Lord Mayor, in proposing the toast of the Pope before that of the Queen, would have been guilty of a blunder, and we all know, on Talleyrand's authority, how far worse is a blunder than a crime. But the Pope, being no longer "two single gentlemen rolled into one," but simply, as it might be set down in a Play-bill of Dramatis Personæ, "First Bishop," and also by his own style and title, "Servus Servorum," the health of His Holiness (which is uncommonly good) might, in British Dominions, be introduced after that of the Queen and Royal Family, and could be fitted into Church and State as neatly as possible, that is, where such a toast is a necessity of the entertainment. But the stupidity of the incident has been surpassed by the idiocy of the notice taken of it, and, for the sake of the common sense of the Common Council, it is to be hoped that a large majority will be on the side of Alderman and Sheriff Renals, and refuse to toast the Lord Mayor on the Gridiron of Lawrence.