The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1897-01-05
NUPKINS AWAKENED.
THE ONLY PLAY EVER WRITTEN BY
WILLIAM MORRIS.

II Was n Satire on the Justice Dispensed
by Sir Peter Edlin-Tho Poet Artist Took
Part Himself "A Socialist BENEFIT Per-
formancc.
On the subject Of the theater, an ell
young first nighter would
probably have given Morris up after the
first attempt to gather his opinion Of
1.-THE Second Mrs. Taaqueray'' as an
ordinary citizen who had nevsr formed
the habit of playgoing, and neither knew
nor cared anything about the theater
except as o treat for children once q year
during the %pantomine season. But Nor
ris would have written for the stage if
there had been any stage that a poet and
artist could write for. When the Social
ist league once proposed to raise the
wind by a dramatic entertainment and
suggested that he should provide the
play, he set to at nce and provided it.
And what Kind Of play was it? Was
it a miracle play on the lines Of those
scenes in the Towneley mysteries be-
tween the ''shepherds abiding in the
feld," which he used to quote with
comedy? Not at all. 1t was a topical ex-
~travaganza, entitled Napkins Awak-
ened," the chief character parts be-
ing Sir Peter Edlin. Tennyson and an
imaginary archbishop Of Canterbury.
Sir Peter owed the compliment to his
activity at that time in sending social
lists to prison ON charges Of "obstruo-
tion," which was always proved by get
ting q policeman to swear that II any
passerby or vehicle had wished to pass
over the particular spot in q thorough
fare on which the speaker or his audi
ence happened to be standing their pres
ence would have INSTRUCTED him.
This contention, which was regarded
as quite sensible and unanswerable by
the newspapers Of the day, was put into
q nutshell in the course of Sir Peters
summing up in the play. I'm fact, gen.
tlemen, it is a matter Of grave doubt
whether we are not all of rs continually
committing this offense from our cradles
to our graves" This speech, which the
real Sir Peter Of course never made,
though be certainly would have done 70
had he had wit enough to see the ab-
surdity OF solemnly sending a man to
prison for two months because another
man could not walk through him. es-
pecially when it would have been 30
easy to lock him up for three months on
some respectable pretext, will probably
keep Sir Peters memory green when all
his actual judicial u]tterances are forgot
ten.
AS to Tennyson, Morr..c took q social
list who happened TO combine the right
sort of beard with q melancholy temper
ament and drilled him in a certain por-
tentous i~ncivility of speech which, taken
from the quality of his remarks, threw
q light on Morris opinion of Tennyson
which was all the more instructive be.
SA.s~ Az Ala II sUu b 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 the ordinary stage fash
ion. He always commended that no more
was necessary for stage illusion than
some indisrinct conventional symbol,
such as a halo for q saint, q crook for. q
bishop, or, if You liked, a cloak and
dagger for the villain and a red wig for
the comedian. A pair Of clerical bands
and black stockings proclaimed theArch-
bishop. The rest he did by obliterating
his humor and intelligence and present.
ing his W person to the audience like
q lantern with the light blown out, with
q dull absorption in his W dignity
which several minutes Of the widest
screaming laughter at him when he en-
tered could not disturb. / laughed i'm
moderately myself, and I can still see
quite clearly the long top floor Of that
warehouse in the Harrington road az I
saw it in glimpses between my parox-
ysms, with Morris gravely On the stage
in his bands at end; Mrs. Stillman,
a tall and beautiful figure, rising like a
delicate spire above q sky line of city
chimney pots, at the other, and u mot
ley sea Of rolling. %wallowing, guf2awing
socialists between.
There has been no other such success
full first night within living memory, I
believe, but remember only one dra-
matte 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 a serious drama
and would no doubt have done it had
there been any practical occasion for it
or any means of concentrating 1t by
stage representation under proper condi-
tions without spending more time on
the job than it was worth. Later, at one
OF the annual festivities of the Hammer
smith Socialist society, he played the
old gentleman in the bath chair in q
short piece called ''The Duchess of Bays.
water" (not by himself), which once
served its turn at the Haymarket as q
curtain raiser. It was impossible for
such q born teller and devourer Of sto.
ries as he was to be Indifferent to an art
which is nothing moe than the most
vivid and real of all ways of story tell.
ing. No man would more willingly