AT THE PLAY.
"Puss in Boots."
If Messrs. Sims, Dix and Collins did in fact, as they claim, make the book of this year's pantomime at the Lane, Mr. George Graves gagged and bound it. This popular annual festival indeed tends to become more and more of a Graves solo (with of course the innumerable customary da capos) and a bright sketchy Evans obbligato. As a Grand Duchess and Duke respectively the genial twain present themselves. Mr. George Graves, in a flounced skirt of green tartan check, copper curls and mahogany features, is a delectable creation; says some strangely unlady-like things (as is expected of him); is still oddly preoccupied with "gear-boxes" and other anatomical detail; and generally indulges in a fine careless rapture of reminiscence and improvisation—zealously assisted by Mr. Will Evans' familiar tip-tilted nose and bland refusal to be perturbed by entirely unrehearsed effects and obviously irregular cues. A jovial and irreverent pair of potentates, crowned by public laughter.
There is, of course, a sort of background to all this audacious fooling, more definitely directed virginibus puerisque. The new principal boy, Mr. Eric Marshall, woos his princess with a romantic air and a mellow tenor, in which emotion somewhat overshadows tone. Miss Florence Smithson, an accepted Drury Lane favourite, looks very charming, makes love in pretty kitten wise and still indulges in those queer harmonics of hers—virtuosity rather than artistry, shall we call it?—but is altogether quite a nice princess of pantomime. Little Renée Mayer is the Puss. Nothing could well be daintier. But I hope she will let me tell her (in a whisper, so that the others won't hear), that she doesn't quite realise what a jolly part she has got. I would implore her to spend an hour or two at serious play with any decent young cat and study the grace and variety of its beautiful, imitable gestures. Then she will assuredly pounce on her magician turned mouse, and fawn on her master and friends, with a greater air of conviction. And she will mightily please all the other nice children in the house.
Of the great ensemble scenes unquestionably the finest was the Fairy Garden, with a quite beautiful back-cloth by R. McCleery and a bewildering (and, to tell truth, largely bewildered) bevy of butterflies, decked by Comelli, fluttering in a flowery pleasaunce. And there was also a clever variation on the now inevitable staircase motif as a finale. But the Harlequinade of happy memory has deplorably declined to something like a mere display of advertisements—a sad business.
"The Starlight Express."
It would be uncandid to pretend that Mr. Algernon Blackwood gets everything he has to say in The Starlight Express safely across the footlights—those fateful barriers that trap so many excellent intentions. But he so evidently has something to say, and the saying is so gallantly attempted, that he must emphatically be credited with something done—something rather well done really. The little play has beautiful moments—and that is to say a great deal.
