The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-11
MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.
"NInn and wtfev at the Arch.


The drama of Nan and Wife, produced at the
Arch last evening, is an adaptation by the author
and Mr.. Barton Hill from Wilkie Collins very pow
erful novel of that name. Mr.. Hills share in the
piece we may presume to have been very small,
and it may be accepted as hasty reaash of the
novel by Mr.. Collins, who, like all the popular
English story writers of the present day. was
anxious to secure the profits of a stage version
of his fiction in advance of other playwrights.
Dramatized novels are rarely satisfactory, and
Man and Wife has suffered quite as much at
the hands of its own producer as it would
probably have done had it received the
attention of some one less interested in doing
it full justice, and it certainly gives us very
low idea of the artistic sensibiities of an author
to find him deliberately mutilating his own
work as Mr.. Collins has done in this instance.
The reader of the novel ought not to expect to
see all its features reproduced upon the stage
but where there is really good dramatic ma
terial there ought to be a reasonably good play,
whether it adheres strictly TO the novel or not.
The subject treated in Man and Wife is dra-
matte in an eminent degree, and some of the
scenes and Enthusiastically that in the second
act, where, by a complication of events, a
'Scotch" marriage takes place without either
of the parties chiefly interested being aware
that they have contracted ties that will
bind them in the future-are highly effective
in themselves, but are unfortunately diluted
with verbiage and trivial explanatory points an
til much of the force is lost and they become al
most tedious and uninteresting. The eonse-
quence of this is that the play drags terribly just
in those places where it ought to be most rapid,
and the opportunities of the actors to act are
lost in the mass of unessental dialogue that they
have to utter. The subject of the play as of
the novel is the evil of the British system, or
want of SYSTEM of marriage laws by which per-
sons united under the loose regulations of Scot
land or the complicated and unjust code that
rules in Ireland are unable at times to tell
whether they are married or not; and in the
novel Mr.. Collins has worked up the theme with
all the skill for which he is famous. If ne could
have dismissed the novel from his mind Alto
gether and written his play as an original treat
ment of the subject, he would have produced a
much more powerful and effective piece. AS il
is, Man and Wife cannot be considered very
striking performance, despite the numerous good
points it contains.
The actors last evening did their part towards
making the play a success, aud If they did not
altogether realize to the fullest extent the char
acters of the book, the deficiencies of the mate
rails with which they worked can be offered in
eXtenuation.
The most striking feature of the performance
was very artistic and very humorous PERSONA
tion of the old Scotch waiter Bishop Riggs, by
Mr.. Craig. The makeup for this part wa'
admirable, and Mr.. Craig has seldom done any
thing better in the way of eccentric character
acting. Miss Price performed the par
| of "Anne Sylvester" in a highly salts
factory manner and Mr.. Hill made
an efficient representative of "Geoffrey Della
mayn," the athletic villain of the play, although
the part is not altogether in his line or calcu
lated to bring out the strong points of his style
The remaining leading characters were credita
bly, personated as follows:-"sir Patrick Lun
die" Mr.. Mackey; "Arnold Brinkworth," Mr.
James, "Lady Lunde," Miss Emile Kiehl
Blanche Lundie,"' Miss May Saville; 'Mrs
Inchbald," Miss Mary Claire, and "Hester Dsth
ridge" Mrs. Maeder.
Man and Wife is handsomely placed upol
the stage, with new and appropriate scenery.