The Tree at the Haymarket.
Frankly, Mr. Grundy has written three Acts of a play which must have been powerful had he not extended it to five, and, had he not attempted to centre the interest on a character which, charming as an incidental sketch, is, as an essential, an excrescence. Practically the play is at an end with the finish of the Third Act. Why lug in the Abbé Constantin? And what an Abbé!!
Where are the familiar details? Where the ancient snuffbox, where his snuffy old pocket-handkerchief? And where the old well-thumbed breviary from which he is inseparable? M. Lafontaine as the Abbé Constantin, the man to the life, was never without the "old black book," under his arm. The Haymarket Abbé takes his meals without blessing himself, by way of saying grace, and fumbles about the heads of people who ask his benison, like an awkward phrenologist feeling for bumps. And what kind of an Abbé would he be who would tell a young girl that, "when she comes to be as old as he is, she will have learnt to doubt everything?" Is it characteristic of a French Abbé to complain of his housekeeper "lighting his fire with his sermons?" It would be quite in keeping with the type of an English Clergyman, who, as a rule, preaches from a written sermon; but not of a French Priest, who preaches without book or manuscript. No; the Abbé Dubois is the Abbé Constantin spoilt, a French Curé Anglicised into a pet Ritualistic Clergyman, Robert-Elsmere'd-all-over by Mr. Grundy, and finally im-parson-ated by Mr. Beerbohm Tree. Wasn't it Mr. Beerbohm Tree who, years ago, created the original of the Bath-bun-eating comical Curate, in The Private Secretary? Well, this is the same comical Clergyman grown older, and with the burden on, what he is pleased to call, his mind of a dying scoundrel's last speech and confession. The strongest objection he has to violate his sacred trust arises from the fear that such a revelation would break the heart of an exemplary old Goody Two-Shoes, for whom he has all his life long cherished a youthful love, the thought of which, and not his supernatural vocation, has sustained him, so I understood him to say, throughout his priestly career. All very pretty and "pale young Curatey," and theatrically sentimental, but don't put this man forward as the self-sacrificing hero of a Melodrama. No; the subject is best let alone. Mr. Grundy seems to have rushed in where wiser men have feared to tread, and thoroughly to have "put his foot in it," all for the sake of transplanting L'Abbé Constantin, whom he has transformed into L'Abbé In-Constantin.
The piece is beautifully put on the stage, and accepting the story as worked out by Mr. Grundy's characters, the acting is excellent all round. There are two powerful situations, one in the First Act between the Judge's son, Mr. Fred Terry, and the innocent victim, Mr. Fernandez, admirably played; and another in the Second between Mr. Terry and Miss Leclercq, also rendered with considerable power. Little Miss Norrey's shrill squeak, or scream, or whatever it is, at the end of the First Act, imperils the situation, and might be toned down with advantage, as also might her spasmodic melodramatic acting later in the piece. Mrs. Tree's is a pretty part, but not a strong one. To sum up, apart from the two situations I have cited, I should say, that what will linger in the memory of man when it runneth not to the contrary, is not the false sentiment, but the real water which fills the real watering-pot, the blossoming apple-tree, and, above all, the stolidly-chivalrous Mr. Allen as Captain of Gendarmes. By the way, the exterior of the presbytery is that of a small cottage. Excellent. The interior, representing the Abbé's sitting-room, is a large and lofty Gothic cell—a regular cell—capable of holding two such presbyteries as we have just seen from outside. But there—it is another lesson—never judge by appearances.
Probable future of the ex-Abbé In-Constantin. He marries Madame D'Arcay, and they come over to England and join the Salvation Army.
To return for the last time to the dramatis personæ, everyone who sees this play will regret that the Author has not bestowed as much pains on the character of the Captain of Gendarmes as he has on the maudlin water-pottering old Curé. The drama, after the Third Act, is lugubrious. Why not lighten the general depression by bringing on the Captain of Gendarmes to the "Boulanger March," and making him as amusing as Sergeant Lupin in Robert Macaire? The piece is well mounted, why should not the Gendarmes be also mounted? There are four or six of them. What an effect has been missed by not bringing them in on real horses, and giving them a quartette or a sestette à cheval, with a solo for the Captain! Then the Captain might know all about the murder, and he would reveal it without breaking the seal—unless it were to crack a bottle—and all would end happily. As it is, all ends miserably, or would so end, but for the Captain, whose last words before the fall of the Curtain, uttered in his best French, are "Ong Avong! Marsh!" From which it may be inferred that they are going into a dismal swamp, but it is magnificent, if not la guerre, and this cry of the Captain has a true military ring about it that gladdens the heart of
Yours ever,
Private Box.