It may be a trivial criticism, but I think the play suffered a little from the appearance of the love-child whose death was to be the punishment for Lisle's sin in sending Mardyke to his death in a forlorn hope. The instructions in my book are contradictory. The time of Act III. is described as "five years later," and we are then told that "four years are supposed to have elapsed since Act II." Anyhow, the boy should be only three or four years old. Actually he is a girl (the stage must have it so) of some ten summers. You may say that all those years during which the lovers' passion has been purified by worship of the child's innocence, and "God has not said a word," add a dramatic force to the blow when at last it falls. But for myself—a mere matter of taste—I feel that the vengeance of Heaven has been nursed too long.
As for the interpretation, I must honestly compliment Mr. Irving and Miss Miriam Lewes on their performance. It is true that I should never have mistaken Mr. Irving for a fighting Roundhead, and he might well have sacrificed something of his personality for the sake of illusion. It is true, too, that he was more concerned about dramatic than poetic effects; yet, within the limitations of a very marked individuality, he did justice to the author by a performance that was most sincere and persuasive. Miss Lewis played her more difficult part with great charm and delicacy. Her manner, even under stress of passionate feeling, still kept the right restraint that Miriam had learnt from her environment; but always we were made to feel that under the prim Puritan gown was a body that had been "born in the sun's lap," and held the warmth of the vinelands in its veins. Perhaps it was from France, too, that Miriam had caught her strange habit of pronouncing "my" (a perfectly good word) as "me."
There is little so worth seeing on the stage to-day as The Sin of David, and I very sincerely hope that both the play and its interpreters may win the wide appreciation they have earned.
O. S.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Arthur Eckerley's ingenious little farce, A Collection will be made, was only introduced into the bill at the Garrick two days before the withdrawal of the Duke of Killicrankie, and that, like the melancholy Jaques, it has had to share the ducal exile. I look forward to its early reappearance under happier auspices, and with Mr. Guy Newall again in the leading part.
"The father of a young lady, aged 15—a typical 'Flapper'—with all the self-assurance of a woman of 30, would be grateful for the recommendation of a seminary (not a convent) where she might be placed."—Times.
"Coaching required for Cambridge Little Girl."—Times.
Is it the same little girl?