Commercial Traveller. "What do you think of the War now, Mrs. Haggett?"
Mrs. Haggett. "Well, Mr. Smith, from what I read in the newspapers and from what Haggett tells me, I—well, I really don't know what to think."
The staginess of things infected or seemed to infect even Miss Irene Vanbrugh. In the first Act I found her a little spasmodic. And all through the play the authors were most arbitrary about the way in which they made her meet the various attacks that were sprung upon her. Thus, at a small shock, she would suddenly start and drop something; but when you expected her at least to swoon on finding that her true name had been discovered, she bore the blow with superb aplomb. And after enduring the K.C.'s interminable recitation with only here and there a sign of personal interest, she finally gave herself away in a loud and voluble protest against the idea that any woman purposing to administer poison to her husband could have been callous enough to try it first on a favourite dog.
There was inconsistency too in the pace at which the performance was conducted. All obvious things were taken quite leisurely; but the speed at which really difficult and complex details were rushed, was simply torrential.
Miss Irene Vanbrugh had her own reputation to compete with in the kind of part in which we know her so well, and to say that she was equal to it is praise enough. She was best, perhaps, because most womanly and least wolfish, in the scene of her confession. As for Mr. Dion Boucicault I would not go so far as to say that his manner deceived me into supposing that he was a real K.C. I have mixed with many real K.C.'s on the parade-ground or in the trenches (home defence), but even in the disguise of a uniform, and under conditions that might tend to obscure the outward signs of legal distinction, I have always observed a certain manner which betrayed their high calling. That manner was not very saliently marked in Mr. Dion Boucicault. But he had an exceptional chance as an actor and grasped it firmly.
The part of Mr. Rigg, blackmailer, the mystery of whose personality, aggravated by a penchant for "hovering" with intent, constituted a darker "Riddle" than that of "Mrs. Lytton," was played by Mr. Oswald Marshall with admirable ease and reserve; and Mr. Stanley Drewitt's Professor Beveridge, an antique lamb who confided to the wolf his views on "discontinuous variations," and by way of reprisal was touched by her for a couple of ten-pound notes, had a pleasant air of naïve sincerity. The others were sufficiently sound on the old accepted lines.
The dialogue had too many long sentences for spontaneity, and when I say that the humour was largely confined to the vague inconsequences of the mother-in-law-to-be you will kindly understand that it was neither profuse nor sparkling.
I shall not venture to predict the length of The Riddle's run; but I suspect that the public may rise superior to the judgment of the critics. Plays that are purely actors' plays have a habit, however familiar their formulas, of coming home to the British bosom; and this one may stick there. O. S.