Semi=weekly graphic., 1896-12-23
NUPKINS AWAKENED.
THE ONLY PLAY EVER WRITTEN BY
 WILLIAM MORRIS.

fornanoe.
 On the subject of tic theater, an en- thusiastic young first nighter would probably have given Morris up after the first attempt to gather his opinion of ''The Second Mrs Tanqueray as an ordinary citizen who had never formed the habit of playgoing, and neither knew nor cared anything about the theater except as treat for children once a year during the pantonine season. But Nor ris would have written for the stage if there had been any stage that poet and artist could write for. When the Social 1 ist league onco proposed to raise the wind by dramatic entertainment and suggested that he should provide the play, he set to at once and provided it.
 And what kind of play was it2 Was it a miracle play on tho lines of those scenes ill the Towneley mysteries be- tween tho Shepherds abiding in the field, " which he used to quote with great relish as his idea of a good bit of comedy? Not at all It was topical OK traYaganza entitled gNuplSins Awak ened, the chief "charaoter parts" be- ing Sir Peter Edlin, fennyson and an imaginary archbishop of Canterbury. Sir Peter owed the compliment to his activity at that time ill sending sooial- ists to prison OH charges of "obstruc- tion, . which was always proved by get ting policeman to swear that if any passerby or vehicle had wished to pass over tho particular spot in thorough. fare on which the speaker or his audi enoe happened to be standing their pres enee would have obstrueted him.
 This contention. which was regarded as quito sensible and uhanswerable by the newspapers of the day. was put into a nutshell ia tho course of Sir Peter s summing up in tho play. In fact, gen. tlemen, it is a matter of grave doubt whether we are not all of us continually committing this offense from our cradles to our graves. " This speech, which the real Sir Peter of course never made, though he certainly would have done so had he had wit enough to see tho ab- surdity of solemnIy sending 9 man to prison for two months because another man could not walk through him, es- peeially when it would have been so easy to lock him up for threo months on some respectable pratext4 will probably keep Sir Peter memory green when all his actual judicial utterances arc forgot ten.
 As to Tennyson, Morris took a social ist who happened 10 combine the right sort of beard with melancholy temper ament and drilled him in q certain DOT tentous inciyility of speech which, taken from tho quality Of his remarks, threw a light on Morris opinion of Tennyson which was all the moro instructive be- cause he delighted ill Tennyson' s verse as keenly as Wagner delighted in the music of Mendelssohn, whose credit for qualities of larger scope he nevertheless wrote down and destroyed
 Morris played the ideal Archbishop himself He made no attempt to make up the part in tho ordinary stage fash ion He always conteuded that no more was necessary for stage illusion than some indistinct conventional symbol, such as halo for d saint, a crook for bishop, or, if you liked, a cloak and dagger for the villain and red wig for the comedian, A pair of clerical bands and black stockings proclaimed theAroh bishop. The rest he did by obliterating his humor and intelligence and present. ing his own person to the audience like 8 lantern with the light blown out, with a dull absol ption in his own dignity which several minutes of the widest screaming laughter at him when he en- tered could not disturb. 1 laughed im- moderately myself, and l can still see quite clearly the long top floor of that warehouse ill the Harrington road as saw it in glimpses between my parox- ysms, with Morris grayely on the stage in his bands at one end; Mrs. Stillman, a tall and beautiful figure, rising like delicate spire above sky line of city chimney pots, at the other, and mot ley sea of rolling, wallowing, guffawing socialists between.
 There has been no other such success ful first night within living memory, l believe, but I remember only one dra matic critic who took care to be present William Archer Morris was so inter ested by his experiment. in this sort of composition that he for some time talk ed of trying his hand at serious drama and would no doubt have done it had there been any practical occasion for it or any means of consummating it by stage representation under proper condi- tions without spending moro time on the job than it was worth. Later, at ono of the annual festivities of the Hammer smith Socialist society, he played the old gentleman iu the bath chair in short piece called ''The Duchess of Bays 1 water'' (not by hinself), which once served it's turn at tie Haymarket as a curtain raiser. 1t was impossible for such born teller aud doyouTer of sto ries as he was to be indifferent to an art which is nothing moro than the most vivid and real of all ways of story tell ing. No man would more willingly have seen his figures move and heard their voices than he. Saturday Review.
 4 Juvenile Taste Explained.
 Little Boy-Our cook has gone away, and Pm awfully glad. Now mamma .x:1 II G.x,o 4o ,,,oI1a fI,a c4Ga and mann