uene Kakadu
Der
9. 3. e
box 15/3
tween Sunser and Dawn,“ though in
theme it bears soine resemblance to Mr.
Galsworthg's“ Fugitive,“ is novel in con¬
struction. original in characterisation, un¬
conventional in vocabulary, and, in its issue
nothing less than astounding. Three out
of its four scenes pass in a doss-house kept
by a“widow in a by-street,“ who, like
Mr. Masefield’s heroine, has an only son,
Jim. As embodied by Mr. McKinnel, he
is a powerful voung fellow, apparently of
the navvy class. We learn casually in the
course of the play that he“ reads books!“;
hut his literary proclivitics have neither
softened his manners nor expurgated bis
langnage. To the doss-house, one night,
there comes a young woman, hitherto un¬
known to nim, who proves to be the wife
of an acquaintance of his, a“swine“ and
a “rotter?' named Bill Higgins. She has
left her husband, unable to endure any
longer his drunkenness and ill-usage; and
her helpless plight awakes the rude—the
very rude—chivalry of Jim Harris’s
nature. He saves her from her husband’s
pursuit, and rapidly falls in love with
ber. To his proposal that they shall go
away and live togetner she besitatingly
and reluctancly consents; but when she
goes off to seek another lodging for the
night, her heart fails her, for she has
been“ brought up respectable.“ and she
returns home.
Her husband is not disinelined to accept
her submission, and for a. moment it seems
as though matters between them were to
be patched up. But his boding eoul tells
him that Jim Harris has been making
up to her.“ and in his drunken jealousy
he becomes s0 violent that once more she
leaves his house. Returning to Jim
Harris, she confesses her infirmity of pur¬
pose, but indicates that she has now done
with her husband for ever. And here is
the point at which Mr. Harris’s charucter
develops in a wholly unexpected direction.
Though his conversation teeme with mono¬
syllabie allusions to Hades and to the
digestive organs, and thongh his conduct
to his aged mother is the reverse of filial,
it now appears that he ie an intransigeant
idealist, with very exacting notions upon
various ethical questions. Hie confidence
in Mrs. Higgins is a good deal shaken
when he finds that abe intended to go
back on her word to him; and when she
confesses to having lied to her husband,
and denied that; he, Jim, had been!
making up to her,“ his moral indigna¬
tion knows no bounds. It avails her
nothing to plead that she stoed in terror
of her life. His reply is,“ Well, yon've
got to die once, haven't yon?’’—and he
shows that he is no longer very keen on
associating with a woman who is capable
of such mean-spirited mendacity.
would be unfair to summarise in cold
blood the end of the play. To under¬
stand it at all, we must follow in detail
the development of Jim’s character; and
chat is impossible unless one could quote
pages of dialogue. Even when we know
all that is to be known about him, I do
not think that his action is very compre¬
hensible. Apart from its startling close,
however, ihe play is full of interest and
promise; and it is admirably acted by Mr.
Mekinnel as Jim. Mr. Edmond Breon as
Bill Higgins, and Miss Mav Blayney as
Some strange mental limitation renders#
me incapable of appreciating“ The Green
Cockatoo,“hy Arthur Schnitzler. When
it was produced by the Stage Society I
could eee nothing in it; but, finding
myself almost alone in that opinion, I
went to the Vandeville, hoping and even
expecting to revise it. In vain! The re¬
volutionary hurly-burly appealed to me
as little on the second hearing as on the
ürst. Let me only record, then, that it is
excellently staged and acted with abun¬
dant spirit by all concerned—notably by
Mr. McKinnel, Mr. Malcolm Cherry, Miss
Mary Clare, and Miss Sarah Brooke. The,
audience scomed to reiish it keenly.
Der
9. 3. e
box 15/3
tween Sunser and Dawn,“ though in
theme it bears soine resemblance to Mr.
Galsworthg's“ Fugitive,“ is novel in con¬
struction. original in characterisation, un¬
conventional in vocabulary, and, in its issue
nothing less than astounding. Three out
of its four scenes pass in a doss-house kept
by a“widow in a by-street,“ who, like
Mr. Masefield’s heroine, has an only son,
Jim. As embodied by Mr. McKinnel, he
is a powerful voung fellow, apparently of
the navvy class. We learn casually in the
course of the play that he“ reads books!“;
hut his literary proclivitics have neither
softened his manners nor expurgated bis
langnage. To the doss-house, one night,
there comes a young woman, hitherto un¬
known to nim, who proves to be the wife
of an acquaintance of his, a“swine“ and
a “rotter?' named Bill Higgins. She has
left her husband, unable to endure any
longer his drunkenness and ill-usage; and
her helpless plight awakes the rude—the
very rude—chivalry of Jim Harris’s
nature. He saves her from her husband’s
pursuit, and rapidly falls in love with
ber. To his proposal that they shall go
away and live togetner she besitatingly
and reluctancly consents; but when she
goes off to seek another lodging for the
night, her heart fails her, for she has
been“ brought up respectable.“ and she
returns home.
Her husband is not disinelined to accept
her submission, and for a. moment it seems
as though matters between them were to
be patched up. But his boding eoul tells
him that Jim Harris has been making
up to her.“ and in his drunken jealousy
he becomes s0 violent that once more she
leaves his house. Returning to Jim
Harris, she confesses her infirmity of pur¬
pose, but indicates that she has now done
with her husband for ever. And here is
the point at which Mr. Harris’s charucter
develops in a wholly unexpected direction.
Though his conversation teeme with mono¬
syllabie allusions to Hades and to the
digestive organs, and thongh his conduct
to his aged mother is the reverse of filial,
it now appears that he ie an intransigeant
idealist, with very exacting notions upon
various ethical questions. Hie confidence
in Mrs. Higgins is a good deal shaken
when he finds that abe intended to go
back on her word to him; and when she
confesses to having lied to her husband,
and denied that; he, Jim, had been!
making up to her,“ his moral indigna¬
tion knows no bounds. It avails her
nothing to plead that she stoed in terror
of her life. His reply is,“ Well, yon've
got to die once, haven't yon?’’—and he
shows that he is no longer very keen on
associating with a woman who is capable
of such mean-spirited mendacity.
would be unfair to summarise in cold
blood the end of the play. To under¬
stand it at all, we must follow in detail
the development of Jim’s character; and
chat is impossible unless one could quote
pages of dialogue. Even when we know
all that is to be known about him, I do
not think that his action is very compre¬
hensible. Apart from its startling close,
however, ihe play is full of interest and
promise; and it is admirably acted by Mr.
Mekinnel as Jim. Mr. Edmond Breon as
Bill Higgins, and Miss Mav Blayney as
Some strange mental limitation renders#
me incapable of appreciating“ The Green
Cockatoo,“hy Arthur Schnitzler. When
it was produced by the Stage Society I
could eee nothing in it; but, finding
myself almost alone in that opinion, I
went to the Vandeville, hoping and even
expecting to revise it. In vain! The re¬
volutionary hurly-burly appealed to me
as little on the second hearing as on the
ürst. Let me only record, then, that it is
excellently staged and acted with abun¬
dant spirit by all concerned—notably by
Mr. McKinnel, Mr. Malcolm Cherry, Miss
Mary Clare, and Miss Sarah Brooke. The,
audience scomed to reiish it keenly.