Mr. Pim only passes by once more to announce his settled conviction that Polwhistle's Christian name was Ernest and not Henry.
It will be seen that the play is original in design; but it is also a true play of character revealed by circumstance. Further—and this is very rare—it owes nothing to the adventitious aid of the costumier. For the author's observation of the unities is extended to include the matter of dress; he allows his people one costume each and no more.
Miss Irene Vanbrugh played as if every one of her words had been made expressly for her, as, no doubt, they were. I have never seen her so perfect in detail, in the poise of her head, in her least gesture and intonation, in her swift changes of mood; never so quietly mistress of the finesse of her art.
As Marden, Mr. Ben Webster was a little restless in a part for which he was not constitutionally suited, but played with the greatest courage and sincerity. Mr. Dion Boucicault's study of Mr. Pim was extraordinarily effective; and the way in which he made the attenuated pipings of this futile old gentleman carry like the notes of a bell was in itself a remarkable feat.
These three were given great chances, full of colour. But in the part of Brian Strange, the boy-lover, by its nature relatively colourless, Mr. Leslie Howard was hardly less good. He never made anything like a mistake of manner. I wish I could say the same of his flapper. But Miss Cohan asserted her good spirits a little too boisterously for the picture.
I hope I shall not be suspected of partiality towards one of Mr. Punch's young men if I say that this is the best of the good things that Mr. Milne has given us. As in his unacted play, The Lucky One, he gives evidence of a desire, not unfrequent in humourists, to be taken seriously. But he knows by now that brilliant dialogue is what is expected of him, and he thinks, too modestly, that he cannot afford to dispense with it for long at a time. The result is that, after stringing us up to face a tragic situation, he is tempted to let us down with light-hearted cynicisms. He would hate me to suggest that Mr. Bernard Shaw has infected him, but perhaps he wouldn't mind my hinting at the influence of Sir James Barrie. Certainly his Mardens remind me of the Darlings in Peter Pan. Just as there we were invited alternately to weep for the bereaved mother's sorrow and roar over the bereaved father's buffooneries, so here, though not so disastrously, our hearts are torn between sympathy for the husband's real troubles and amusement at the wife's flippant attitude towards the common tragedy.
I will not deny the sneaking pleasure which this flippancy gave me at the time, but in the light of calmer reflection I feel that Mr. Milne would really have pleased himself better if he could have found the courage to keep the play on a serious note all through the interval between Mr. Pim's first and second revelations. Apart from the higher question of sincerity he would have gained something, in an artistic sense, by getting a stronger contrast out of the change of situation that followed the announcement of Tellworthy's demise.
In the First Act we seemed to have a little too much of the young couple, but this insistence was perhaps justified by the important part which their affairs subsequently played (along with the leit-motif of the futuristic curtains) in the readjustment of the relations between husband and wife.
If I have any flaw to find in a really charming play, I think it was a mistake for Mrs. Marden to let Mr. Pim into the secret of her past. As with the sweet influences of Pippa, so with the devastating havoc wrought by the inexactitudes of Mr. Pim, I think he should have been left unconscious of the effect of his passing.
For the rest,