Liebel
5. box 11/4
This play, which, as we understand, Is very success¬
Pful in Austria and Germany, has a simple story.
Fritz Lobheimer, an oflleer in an Austrian Dragoon
regiment, has been carrging on an intrigue with a
married woman, and another at the same time with
Christine, the daughter of old Hans Weiring, a
violinist in a theatre orchestra. The husband of
the married woman challenges him and kills him;
and Christine, on learning the news, rushes out in
despair, to commit, as we are led to believe, suielde.
That is the skeleton—simple, and strong enough to
bear a body of genuine tragedy. Towards clothing
it with genuine tragedy the author has gone a good
way. We learn very early in the play that Christine
is not like her friend Mizi Schlager, a mere light¬
o'-love, despising all men, but equally ready to take
any lover she can get and to bid him a cheerful
good-bye when she can kcep him no longer. Christine
takes the affair very seriously. She has in her a pretty
strong dose of the will to keep. Fritz in her first
lover—for hitherto she has been quite respectable—.
and he will be her last. Fritz looks at the matter
in atotally different light. Even atthe merry supper¬
party in the first act his head is at least as full of
the married woman as of Christine. And after that
party (Fritz is entertaining bis friend Theodor Kaiser
and Theodor’s“ friend'' Mizi, and Christine, and they
have been drinking Bruderschaff and doing all sorts
of amusing Austrian things) has been interrupted by
the enraged husband with his challenge, he has, of
course, an additional reason for insisting to Christine
that this sort of thing is only temporary. It
is all no use. The will to keep in Christine is only
intensified in the second act by Fritz's very charming
way of aying what he knows, but Christine does not
know, to be probably a last farewell, vowing (what
was doubtless true at the moment) that he really did
love her. And so it happens that in the third act,
when the news is brought to the girl that her lover is
not only dead, but has been shot in a duel about
another woman, she is driven practically mad by her
loss.
Madness, it has been sal“, is only exaggerated
selfishness. It may be so; in any case the
madness—that is, the character—of Christine is just
what, in our opinion, has prevented this play from
becoming a genuine tragedy. It has affected it in
#two ways. The first, and least important, is this
Christine has been, all along, a negative person.
She appeared to have only one positive quality—
that pretty strong dose of the will to keep. And so,
when this negative, inarticulate creature suddenly
breaks into eloquence and pours out, disjointedly
but with acute point, rage and scorn and grief, we
feel that this is not Christine herself speaking, but
the author. The girl herself—at any rate, as we saw
her yesterday—might feel these things dimly, but
she never could say them. It is the auther who feels
them acutely for her, and uses her inappropriate
mouth forthe expression of them. A more important
matter is this, that we sce in Christine no trace of
regret for the man who is dead. Not a single“ Poor
Fritz!“ passes her lips. It is herself she is thinking
of, the slight put upen her by the intrigue with the
other woman, the fact that Fritz on his way to the
duel talked to Theodor of other people and things
besides herself; and these are the subject of her
outburst. So Christine sbrivels under our eyes.
Her sorrow is only an intensification of that¬
“ worriting“ to which we had scen her subject her
lover before; and tragedy is not made of women like
this.
Still. the play is a sincere, artfully-constructed,
and occasionally moving piece of work; and it is
admirably acted under the superintendence of Herr
Max Behrend. We suspect that Fritz was intended
by the author to he rather more of a“ gay dog?
and rather less of a romantic hero than he was made
by Mr. Ainley; but, granted his view of the character,
Mr. Ainler acted it almost to perfection. Miss
Margaret Halstan, too, did well, though she failed to
find a way of reconciling the two Christines. The
part of her father, played by Mr. Hignett, was only
saved from conventionality by the straightforward
views the old gentleman hadto express onthe ultimate
value of respectability in youth, and to these Mr.
Hignett gave their full virtue. Mr. Charles Maude
and Miss Margaret Bussé romped delightfully as a
pair of light-o'-loves, and in serious moments the
former showed more than the promise of a very
capable actor. Mr. James Hearn made an intensely
vivid thing of his five minutes’ scene as the infuriated
husband, and Miss Sydney Fairbrother, as a sharp¬
tongued neighbour, showed an art and a finish equal
to Mr. Heamn's. The play will be repeated at His
Majesty's Theatre on the afternoons of Tuesday andf
Thursday next.
5. box 11/4
This play, which, as we understand, Is very success¬
Pful in Austria and Germany, has a simple story.
Fritz Lobheimer, an oflleer in an Austrian Dragoon
regiment, has been carrging on an intrigue with a
married woman, and another at the same time with
Christine, the daughter of old Hans Weiring, a
violinist in a theatre orchestra. The husband of
the married woman challenges him and kills him;
and Christine, on learning the news, rushes out in
despair, to commit, as we are led to believe, suielde.
That is the skeleton—simple, and strong enough to
bear a body of genuine tragedy. Towards clothing
it with genuine tragedy the author has gone a good
way. We learn very early in the play that Christine
is not like her friend Mizi Schlager, a mere light¬
o'-love, despising all men, but equally ready to take
any lover she can get and to bid him a cheerful
good-bye when she can kcep him no longer. Christine
takes the affair very seriously. She has in her a pretty
strong dose of the will to keep. Fritz in her first
lover—for hitherto she has been quite respectable—.
and he will be her last. Fritz looks at the matter
in atotally different light. Even atthe merry supper¬
party in the first act his head is at least as full of
the married woman as of Christine. And after that
party (Fritz is entertaining bis friend Theodor Kaiser
and Theodor’s“ friend'' Mizi, and Christine, and they
have been drinking Bruderschaff and doing all sorts
of amusing Austrian things) has been interrupted by
the enraged husband with his challenge, he has, of
course, an additional reason for insisting to Christine
that this sort of thing is only temporary. It
is all no use. The will to keep in Christine is only
intensified in the second act by Fritz's very charming
way of aying what he knows, but Christine does not
know, to be probably a last farewell, vowing (what
was doubtless true at the moment) that he really did
love her. And so it happens that in the third act,
when the news is brought to the girl that her lover is
not only dead, but has been shot in a duel about
another woman, she is driven practically mad by her
loss.
Madness, it has been sal“, is only exaggerated
selfishness. It may be so; in any case the
madness—that is, the character—of Christine is just
what, in our opinion, has prevented this play from
becoming a genuine tragedy. It has affected it in
#two ways. The first, and least important, is this
Christine has been, all along, a negative person.
She appeared to have only one positive quality—
that pretty strong dose of the will to keep. And so,
when this negative, inarticulate creature suddenly
breaks into eloquence and pours out, disjointedly
but with acute point, rage and scorn and grief, we
feel that this is not Christine herself speaking, but
the author. The girl herself—at any rate, as we saw
her yesterday—might feel these things dimly, but
she never could say them. It is the auther who feels
them acutely for her, and uses her inappropriate
mouth forthe expression of them. A more important
matter is this, that we sce in Christine no trace of
regret for the man who is dead. Not a single“ Poor
Fritz!“ passes her lips. It is herself she is thinking
of, the slight put upen her by the intrigue with the
other woman, the fact that Fritz on his way to the
duel talked to Theodor of other people and things
besides herself; and these are the subject of her
outburst. So Christine sbrivels under our eyes.
Her sorrow is only an intensification of that¬
“ worriting“ to which we had scen her subject her
lover before; and tragedy is not made of women like
this.
Still. the play is a sincere, artfully-constructed,
and occasionally moving piece of work; and it is
admirably acted under the superintendence of Herr
Max Behrend. We suspect that Fritz was intended
by the author to he rather more of a“ gay dog?
and rather less of a romantic hero than he was made
by Mr. Ainley; but, granted his view of the character,
Mr. Ainler acted it almost to perfection. Miss
Margaret Halstan, too, did well, though she failed to
find a way of reconciling the two Christines. The
part of her father, played by Mr. Hignett, was only
saved from conventionality by the straightforward
views the old gentleman hadto express onthe ultimate
value of respectability in youth, and to these Mr.
Hignett gave their full virtue. Mr. Charles Maude
and Miss Margaret Bussé romped delightfully as a
pair of light-o'-loves, and in serious moments the
former showed more than the promise of a very
capable actor. Mr. James Hearn made an intensely
vivid thing of his five minutes’ scene as the infuriated
husband, and Miss Sydney Fairbrother, as a sharp¬
tongued neighbour, showed an art and a finish equal
to Mr. Heamn's. The play will be repeated at His
Majesty's Theatre on the afternoons of Tuesday andf
Thursday next.