"CYRANO" MOVES TO DRURY LANE.
SIR THOMAS BEECHAM, having been translated to another place, has made way for Cyrano and his nose, which now finds more room to turn round in. I had not seen Mr. LORAINE on the more congested stage of the Garrick. Indeed the last time that I assisted at M. ROSTAND'S play was some twenty years ago in the South of France. It happened that there had recently been a vogue of Musketeer plays in England. Behind my seat was a British Baronet (a recent creation) for whom the French language had little or no meaning. The first and only sign of intelligence that he showed was well on in the performance, at the words, "Qui est ce monsieur?" "C'est D'Artagnan." (D'Artagnan then disappears altogether).
"Another of these damned Musketeer plays," said the Bart.; "I'm off!" And he went.
I am not sure that, even in English, it would have been just the play for his taste; but that London has plenty of people who can appreciate it may be seen by the way in which Mr. LORAINE can hold the great auditorium under the spell of its romance. Without an effort he endears to us the defects of his hero's Quixotic qualities, and makes his very deformity contribute to the triumph of his heroic panache. Even such of the poet's prolixities as survive a very careful pruning of the text are made to seem essential to the self-expression of character.
Mr. LORAINE is happy in his book, for the clever rendering made by Miss GLADYS THOMAS and Miss MARY GUILLEMARD reproduces both the spirit and the letter of the poem. And from his cast he gets all the support that he needs. True, he needs very little. He fills the stage, and the other characters—notably the colourless Christian de Neuvillette—are little more than his foils. Miss STELLA CAMPBELL, as Roxane, failed, at times, to convey a sense of overwhelming passion either for the body of Christian or the soul which she imagined it to contain; but she was always a gracious figure and her voice was gentle. Perhaps Mr. LORAINE owed most to his scenic artists, Messrs. DULAC and JOHN BULL, who gave of their best. There was attraction too in the very names of Arras and Bapaume, as well as in the thought of the part that our Cyrano of to-day has played against a ruder foe than the Spaniard. And was I wrong in tracing a hint of other experiences gained at the front, when Mr. LORAINE nearly turned up his false nose at the mention of "military wit."
The part offers little scope for humour. Cyrano, with all his generous impulses, is too self-conscious for that. But in each of his moods and phases—bravado, sacrifice, acceptance of the inexorable pathos of things—Mr. LORAINE had got at the heart of the man. A very brave and inspiring performance.
O.S.
"WHERE YOU BIN THIS HOUR OF THE NIGHT?"