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TWO VIVID PLAYS FROM
VIENNA.
ALDWTCH MATINEE.
It is remarkable that of all the many theatres
which minister to London’s amusement not
more than one or two are at the present moment
showing anything half so good as the two one¬
act plays presented by the Stage Society at a
fleeting matinée yesterday afternoon at the
Aldwych Theatre. They were both by Arthur
Schuitzler, the first one of the typieal Viennese
comedies and the other a strange bizarre in¬
cident in Paris on the day that the Bastille was;
taken by the mob.
* Comtesse Mizzi,“ the comedy, would no
doubt be considered by the censor as a good
deal too risqué for the English stage, but at the
Aldwych, once Mrs. Grundy had been banished
from the mind, it was a little story full s charm.
We are introduced to a conversation between
Count Arpad Pazmandy and Prince Ravenstein.
The count, in spite of his youthful appearance,
is nearing the sixties; the prince is seven years
his junior. The count is feeling melancholy,
for Lolo Langhuber, the actress, with whom he
has had tender relations for years past, has
decided to settle down and marry, and the count,
awidower for manvyears, tells his old friend how
much he will feel the parting. The prince, also
a widower, has inchis turn a confidence to make,
much more startling. He has a son of seventeen
whom nobody has ever heard of, and has de¬
eided that, the young man shall bear his name.
The count, in his
He will be along shortly.
mood of melancholy, inquires tenderly after the
mother, and hears that she died years ago.
THE COUNTS DAUGHTER.
Then the Comtesse Mizzi, the Count’s gentle
daughter, comes on the scene. Unmarried and
well on in the thirties, she has been a cause of #.
some condern to the Connt, who cannot under- gl
stand why she has refused so manv stiters. He
dr
nc
puts it down to the fact that she is 80 much
wrapped up in her art of painting. But thef ot.
Count once out of the way, the Prince gives a
startling piece of news to the Comtesse and to
the audience. That day she will see“her?
son. The gentle Comtesse declares with passion
that she does not wantto. If in the days when
tio
the Prince’s wife was alive he had been
courageous enough, as she would have been,
to let the world know what had happened, they
could have gone awav and faced the world all
three together. But her haby was taken away
from her when he was only a few days old. She
had to suffer that shock, and now all love for her
ber
son and his father is dead. The Prince asks her
the
to marry him, as he has done before, but she will
nes
not hear of it. And here we learn that the
bas
Comtesse Mizzi, who to her father has always
anc
appeared a type of resigned and happy spinster¬
har
hood, has not let the years nass over her head
(he:
The Prince knows it,
without“ compensations.'
the
too, but he is wishful tc marry her all the
eve
same.
for
The youth Philip comes, gay and sparkling,
mno
Tre¬
and we see that the inflexibihty of the Comtesse
is rapidly disappearing. It all ends with a pro¬
knc,
posal for evervbody to go to Ostend, where we
are sure that the Comtesse will decide to become
a mother tothe voung man. The play was helped
enormously by the sympathetie character of the
actors. Mr. Robert Horton and Mr. Athol Stewart,
volt¬
as the Count and the Prince respectively, made
dail
two most convincing and kindly aristoorats. Miss
the
Katherine Pole was a charming Mizzi, and Miss
don
Margaret Bussé, as the actress Lolo from whom
tion
the Count parts with melancholy, gave an admir¬
able study in her frank conversation with Mizzi.
desi
to a
THE GREEN COCKATOO.“
Dea
Whatever objections Mrs. Grundy might find
mei
in this piece are not present in the second play,
SIIIC
The Green Cockatoo,'a“ grotesque,“ as it 1e
any
called. It is a most powerful piece of work, and
at
shows a disreputable tavern frequented by the
to
French aristocracy cf 1789. Here the exquisites
nes
come to mix with a rabble of actors who play at
fror
being villains. To their faces the exquisites and
abo
their ladies are called scum and pigs, and the
Then
aristocrats enjoy the joke immensely.
Henri, the“ star artist'' of the ragamuffins,
comes in and relates how, from jealousy, he has
killed the young Duke de Cadignan. The joke
sec
is enjoyed tremendously. Then the Duke appears
hat
just as Heuri learns that he has real reason for
all
jealousy. Henri stabs the Duke before the horri¬
see
fied eyes of the exquisites, and at that moment a
cov
rabble bursts in fresh from the taking of the
it 1
Bastille, and one feels the doom of the old
fere
nobility hanging heavv in the air.
pre:
But it is mmpossible to convey the bizarre
call
atmosphere and the power of this most unusual
fee
play. Mr. Leon Quartermaine as Henri was mag¬
(Sat
nificent, and others, amongst many, who distin¬
guished themselves were Mr. Claude Rains, Mr.
me
Luke Forster, Mr. H. B. Waring, Miss Caroline
133
Bayley, and Miss Violet Farebrother.
tute
Cen
bor
#lm in black and white of the royal pro¬
Bu
#slioment, was shown
suf
O VW
# PHYL.“
THE STAGE SOCIETY.
Wre 7 is not
TWO SCHNITZLER PIECES.
sing. The
„ but the
& COMTESSE MIZZI.“
Phyl“ the
It was to be
A Comedy, in One Act, by ARTHUR ScHNiTzLEE.
Again the
Translated by H. A. HERTz.
d so Miss
Connt Arpad Pazmandy. Robert Horton.
produced for
Mizzi, his Daughter. Katherine Pole.
afternoon
Egon, Prince Ravenstein.. Athol Stewart.
Philip Godffrey Dennis.
every after¬
Lolo Langhuber Margaret Bussé.
and Satur¬
Wasner Rupert Lumley.
Professor Windhofer Ivo Dawson.
many years
Scene: Garden of the Count’s Villa.
she was left
On Sunday night, and again yesterday afternoon,
has looked
the Incorporated Stage Society presented translations
miserably
of two one-act plays by Arthur Schnitzler, of
grow grey
Anatol“ celebrity, the first a comedy entitled
joy or the
* Comtesse Mizzi,“' Englished by H. A. Hertz; the
Fonce have
second“ The Green Cockatoo,'’ styled a“ grotesque,?'
und sonl to¬
and translated by Penelope Wheeler. For one-act
by working
pieces both are beyond the ordinary length,“ Comtesse
1ess to Mrs.
Mizzi'’ playing forty-five minutes and“ The Green
ihe first act
Cockatoo“ about five minutes longer. The moral of
annical and
Comtesse Mizzi'’ would seem to be that even if the
loo pleasant
ordinary conventions of life and society were swept
rould marry
away it would be necessary to invent others, if only
ivho is stay¬
for the purpose of giving some slight interest to our
lot care for
#isdoings, for with no rules of conduct to break it
to Captain
follows that naughtiness of every sort would at once
m by Olive
become at least as flat as severest virtue. It is just
who forth-] because, in this curious society—presumably Austrian,
hatening to
but not specially so indicated bythe characterisation—to
#ce children
which Herr Arthur Schnitzler introduces us, scarcely
s is utterly
one of the men or wornen has the least notion of
does not
morality as the word is generally understood, that the
sister has
whole business strikes one as unreal, artificial, non¬
ie routine,
human, and therefore unattractive. All along it is no
ment. So
more than playing with passion. Count Arpad, a well¬
attractive
preserved man in the mid-fifties, has had an actress
about it
“ under his protection?' since the death of his wife
insulting
twenty years earlier. When the play opens the
he is, of
liaison is just ending, Lolo having decided to marry a
is nothing
wealthy carriage proprietor. The Connt takes the
lodgings,
matter philosophically, remembering that he has a
1 probably
charming daughter, unmarried, and about the same
tly cut up
age as Lolo—a woman of thirty-six or so, in fact.
s acconnt,
What he does not know is that seventeen or
the Con¬
eighteen years before this daughter, who is the Com¬
nking, the
tesse Mizzi, was in love with his intimate friend
act as has
Egon, Prince Ravenstein; still less does the Count
naturally
suspect that Philip, the bright lad whom the Prince
fairness,
introduces as his adopted son, is in reality his daugh¬
two acts,
ter’s child, and thus his own grandson. This rather
may be
horrible muddle, which in any primitive or savage
ffect, two
community would be tragic, is here so lightly treated
pent most
—for Vienna is lighter far than Paris—as to become
: she may
almost comic. Even the meeting between mother and.
mission,
son, which ought to be full of poignancy, has no real
ence has
significance, just because there is no blood, no hearß
uly leave
in it all. And the introduction of the two womenn
sind me
seemed full of possibilities; yet they came to nothing.
by that
Oh,? remarks the daugnter,“ I’ve had my fling!
4 Phyllis.
—as in truth she had, the Prince being by ne means
ere comes
her ouly partner—whereupon the mistress ab-
with all
enter the bonds of holy matrimony responds joyfully:
hundred
Thank goodness for that!? There is now a bond
lecides to
between them. We leave these queer people—that is
to take
to say, the Count and his daughter and the Prince
lat there
and his son—about to set out for Ostend, and there
of Mrs. # gre not wanting signs that Comtesse Mizzi may soon
e adventmake up her mind to become Princess, as she might
Vs of his
have been years before. What the Count will say
ue scene
when he learns the truth one would like to know,
onfused,
but the author has stopped short of telling us thaf!
scenes
The chief parts were played easily, and with as much
he cer¬
conviction as could be expected in the circumstances,
Vareall
by Miss Katherine Pole (Mizzi), Miss Margaret Busse
#t is fine
(Lolo), Mr. Robert Horton (the Count), Mr. Athol
mnot see
Stewart (Prince Egon), and Mr. Godffrey Dennis,
n under¬
really boyish and natural as Philip.
e would
" The Green Cockatoo, though marked by many
Etion 18
touches of the true Schnitzler cynicism, is altogether
lightly
out of the" Anatol'’ line. Here we have an am¬
unad¬
bitions and on the whole not unsuccessful attempt.
à piece
to give a hit of the life of Paris at tho
Mona
start of the Revolution, somewhat d /a Carlyle, or.
for her
perhaps, more nearly d a Dickens. The date