Arthur Cecil, too, as Baron Stein, excellent, cela va sans dire; yet, somehow, his effects now seem to me to be laid on with too broad a brush, especially in the scene of his last appearance, where he makes a sly, and, for the Baron Stein, a rather over-elaborated and farcical attempt to recapture the letter he has just given up. Forbes Robertson is good from first to last as the very weak-knee'd Julian Beauelere, sufficiently emotional in the strong situations, and never better than when the character itself is at its weakest; that is, in the one great scene with his wife.
The Algie Fairfax, of Mr. Gilbert Hare, was natural where the authors have allowed him to be natural, and best, therefore, in the last Act, where he has become a responsible personage in a diplomatic office. The "three-men-in-a-difficulty" scene went as well as ever, though, on the whole, played far too slowly, and with so much "suppressed force," that the celebrated "Monsieur! à vos ordres!" when Orloff suddenly breaks out into "the language of diplomacy," did not electrify the house. On the contrary, the audience took it very quietly, awaiting with some curiosity the interference of Henry Beauclerc. And it was at this point that the services of Mr. John Hare in this character were invaluable. Never had his crisp incisive style produced more marked effect. It is a pity that in the Third Act, which being the weak point of the play requires all the strength of the actor to be seriously employed, Mr. Hare should have given a very light comedy, nay, even a farcical touch to his treatment of the "business" of sniffing the perfume—when he is literally "on the scent"—and to the momentous situation of his interview with Zicka. "Maintenant à nos deux!" Odd that, in his treatment of the strength of the scent, Sardou should have shown the feebleness of his methods. Yet so it is. The play, at this point, being practically played out, he carelessly chucks the puppets into a corner. He has made his great scenes, and there's an end of it; let the weakest go to the wall.
Duet—Baron Cecil Stein and Lady Henry Bancroft Fairfax (with original model of Strasbourg Clock)—"Here we are again!"
Scent Zicka—from a (guilt)-stained-glass Russian window.
Last of all to be mentioned with unstinted praise is Miss Kate Rorke. It is as well to remember throughout that we are witnessing a play of semi-French, not purely domestic English life, and the essence of the play could not be adapted to ordinary English notions. Julian Beauclerc, for example, in England, would never have challenged Count Orloff; he might have had "a deuce of a row with him"; et voilà tout. Dora, as a young Irish girl, and not, as she is here, a half-breed, would never have threatened to suicide herself out of the window, though all else she, as a not particularly well-educated, but certainly very impulsive girl, might probably have done. Her great scene, where she bangs her fists against the looked doors, shrieking to her husband to return—an effect to be led up to and made within the space of a minute—was, if I may be allowed to say so, without being suspected of exaggeration, "just perfect." That some considerable time will elapse before the enthusiasm aroused by this revival dies out among the patrons and lovers of the Drama-at-its-best is the private opinion, publicly expressed, of Yours, truly, "The One Man Seen" in a Box.
P.S.—When Diplomacy shall have accomplished its Hundred Nights, Mr. Hare can announce its Scentenary.