1g
18
in
11
gredients, and he leaves the stone, taking with him
in exchange a chicken and a bottle of whisky. Mr.
Pateman did what was possible in this over-elaborated
trifle with the part of the wayfarer.
"IN THR HOSPITAL.“
The secund piece, Ja the Hospital, translated by
Mr. Christopher Horne from the German of Herr
Arthur Schnitzler, is an extremely powerful littie
piay, and a remarkable oue, moreover. There 1s
practically no action: the man on whom everything
depends never moves from the chair in which, indeed,
he is dying, and yed the simple littiedrama holds the
audience irresistibly. In an extra ward of the Vienna
General Hospital Karl Rademacher's life is ebbing
away. His career has been a failure. He has worked
hard as a hack journalist to earn a scanty wage, and
what has made it all the more bitter is that, while he
has gone down bis old companion Alexander
Weihgart, no cleverer or more capable Rade¬
macher is convinced, has steadily ascended.
His own earnest desire is to meet the man he regards
as his successful rival, to let him know that his friend¬
ship has been a pretence, that he hates him; and he
is overjoyed when the Doctor consents to ask
Weihgart to come. There is an actor, Florian
Schubart, also in the hospital, and he suggests a
rehearsal of the coming scene; he will be Weihgart—
what has Radomacher to say to him? The writer
begins his venomous tirade, he casts the mask aside,
tells the other what he has longed to tell, and winds
up with a cruel stab—Weihgart’s wife, he
declares, has been his mistress. Erhausted by the
effort, for his wrath has carried him beyond his
strength, he is lying quietly back in his chair
when Weihgart arrives, and begins to talk
soothingly, to lament his old comrade’s misfortunes,
to speak of the disappointments and irritations that
have constantly affected himself in the midst of bis
apparent prosperity; and Rademacher is gradually
moved to gentler thoughts, his fury passes; when the
allotted quarter of an hour has gone the two part
in all kindness, Weibgart never dreaming that any
hard thought has been in his old friend’s mind. Mr.
J. D. Beveridge plays Rademacher with striking force
and finish. Complex as the dving man's fancies may
be, they are always expressed with perfect clearness.
it
The actor, who does nothing ill, has certainly not for
a long time doue anything better; it is a study which
he
will dwell in the recollection of those who see it.
he
Mr. George Trollope was also excellent as Schu¬
bart, but Mr. Rudge Harding, as Weihgart,
i- lacked sincerity; bis manner, indeed, rather
ed jexpressed patronage than sympathy, and the reason
for the change in Rademacher was not made so com¬
vi¬
prehensible as it should have been. The doctor was
woll played by Mr. Howard Sturge and the nurse by
Miss Isabel Grey.
8
MR. B. SHAW'S FARCE.
e8
zir
Mr. Bernard Shaw wound upthe programme with a
rt,
farce which exhibits his fantastie humour at its
18
wildest. How He Liedto Her Husband is the title of
this extraordinarily diverting piece.“ He? is an un¬
fledged vouth called Henry Apjohn, and the lady with
the husband—a blunt, unromantio stockbroker—is
he
Mrs. Aurora Bumpus. Henry loves her with just the
same absorbing devotion that Eugene in Candida
feels for the clergyman’s excellent wife, and he begs
her to share his lot—simply to walk out of
the house, and take up her residence with him,
ignoring the man who“ may have loved her
as much as his sordid nature and commercial environ¬
ment rendered possible.“ But she has something
else to think of. She is in sore trouble. He has
written her ardent verses, Aurora is the burden of
all of them, and these verses have, she is convinced,
T
fallen into the hands of a spiteful sister-in-law, who
will inevitably show them to her husband. It all
arises, she complains, from Henry having taken her
to see Candida, and she warns him that“ Teddy
won's stand it like that half-baked parson in the
it
play. What is to be done? Henry must say that
the poems were written to another Aurora, and
merely shown to her because of the similarity of
(
name. As a man of honour and a gentleman, he
couid not think of telling the truth, it is impressed
upon him, and so, when Teddy arrives, a bundle of
manuscript in his hand, Heury is ready to lie.
it
Taxed with making love to Aurora, he em¬
it
phatically denies it. The verses were written to
the goddess of dawn, his sentiments towards Mrs.
Bumpus have been merely those of calm, ordinary
triendship. Teddy does not believe. Hie has heard
thinner stories from much older men, he says; but
this will not do. Heury persists. He does not ad¬
mire Mrs. Bumpus at all. She is no more to him
than an acquaintance—and Teddy grows furious.
Not to love bis wile is aslight to her—to her,“ the
smartest woman in the smartest set in South Ken¬
sington.“ What sort of a miserable little jackanapes
is the man who can know her and think of her with
indifference, he wants to know. They quarrel; at
leugth they come to blows, or, rather, fall in the
attempt to strike cach other, and Aurora enters to
find them prostrate. Then Henry tells the truth.
He has loved Mrs. Bumpus, and wanted her to run
away with him, upon which Teddy freely forgives him,
and only begs leuvetohave the poems published. The
piece could not have been better played than it was
by Miss Gertrude Kingston, Mr. Grauville Barker,
and Mr. A. G. Poulton, and the audience laughed
as audiences seldom do laugh in a theatre.
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PALL MALL GAZETTE.
COURT THEATRE MATINEES.
Ireland forthe lrish and Irish players for Mr. Veats’s plays, was the im¬
pression left at the fall of the curtain on“ The Pot of Broth,“ which many
pcople liked when it was played some time ago in London. Itis disappointing
as rendered by Mr. Robert Pateman, Miss Lamborn, and Mr. Tully at the
Court. Somehow one felt that th players thought it was nonsense. Irish
people are more childlike, better at make-believe, possibly lighter of touch,
which would make all the difference to a play of this sort: a little, one-part,
rogue’s comedy. It seemed to us a pity that a poet should follow the
fashion for realism so far as to have the cries of a hen being killed outside
the cottage just before it appeared on the stage being plucked. It is not
necessarg to the playlet, and is disagreable; but perhaps this is another in¬
justice to lreland. Very different is real realism such as one gets in In
the Hospital.“ This is a play which we would call powerful, if that word
had not deen too often used of late. It shows the sure technique ofsthe
man who is master of his materials, has known what effect he meantto
produce, and has observed and worked, however unconsciously, until hei
produced it." Inthe Hospital' is like life itself; it sets one pondering and
speculating. Leaves one wondering and interested, if sad and puzzied, for
a solution to it all.
The part of the poor, unsuccessful journalist, who resents so bitterly
the fact that he has had to use his brain to further schemes whichche
hated for scoundrels whom he despised, wäs magnificently played by Mr.
J. D. Beveridge, and it is not a part which is easy to handle. Many are
the#emotions the actor is called upon to show, most of them intense, and
all subject to the great fact that he is a dying man lying back almost
helpless in a big chair. Comparatively few are the words he has to speak,
he#never utters one to explain that he is the father of the son and daughter
his successful friend speaks of; vet author and actor between them—
the author by a third person's apparently irrelevant talk, the actor by
his actione=let the audience know this just as they would have knownn
## theg had been present at the actual death in an actual hospital. This is
#art, great on both author’s and actors’ parts. Mr. George Trollope, as the
consumptive player, studying still even amongst the surroundings of a
hospital ward, and in spite of the fact that he has been given up bythe
doctors himself, played very tolerably. He would have been nsuch better
if he had not felt he had to get all it was worth out of an effective part.
lie was just a trifle of the theatre, theatrical. Mr. Rudge Harding, as
the successful fool friend, gave a capable character performance, which
didn't harm the play in any way, but tell short of perfection in that it was
a performance, not the presentment of the man. He never gave us one
werd or one idea that be didn't speak. The nurse’s part, though small,
was quite excellently played by Miss Isabel Grey. Indeed, it was largely
owing to her acting that the atmosphere of the hospital came out so
clearlv. Both play and players are well worth seeing.
How He Lied to Her Husband'' showed chiefly how much Mr.
Bernard Shaw has grown backwards since he wrote“ Candida.“ The
audience laughed, and expressed itself amused—Mr. Shaw’s reputation as
a witty man is world-wide—but the reception was not overpoweringly en¬
thusiastic at the finish. Perhaps because some of us felt that we had
drained the cup of vulgarity to the dregs while we gave our best attention
to his latest work. Of course, the idea of the husband who rounds on the
lover for denvingsthat he is in love with the wife is deliciously funny, but,
chlthe difference there might have been in the leading up to this denou¬
ment. Was it necessary to make the woman talk of verses which only a
married woman could understand? Would the boy ever have been in love
with such a woman: It is possible that another actor and actress than
Mr. Granville Barker and Miss Gertrude Kingston, “ Her Lover?' and
Herself,’ would have given an altogether different rendering of the play,
but we suppose Mr. Shaw attended the rehearsals and superintended the
stage management, and, therefore, got something near what he wanted.
If he didn't, he should have. At any rate, we can only judge of the play
as it appeared. Mr. A. G. Poulton gave an excellent performance ofthe
husband who admires his own wife so much that he wishes every man she
meets to fall in love with her. He played so convincingly that one almost
forgot to apply reason to his actions and wonder why he should have come
into the room threateningly with the compromising poems if he wished to
hear later on that they werewritten to his wise.