The sun., 1903-12-06
THE PLAYS OF THE PAST WEEK
NEAT CHARACTER DRAWING IN
"WHITEW ASKING JTLIA."
4 DelineatiOn OF Manners Rather Than
Of Passions, TbOsiSh--(lever situa-
tIOns In 1.-THE Marriage or Kitty
BJOrnst Jerne BJOrnsOn's "a Fall.
.,,asy Nl,lt nnpp nj ihp EnOfrP.

tIOns In "The Marriage or Kitty
BJOrnst Jerne BJOrnsons "A Fall.
u.e" We'll Done at the Empire.
They are telling the story in London
that Henry Arthur Jones's nine year old
son was taken to see "Whitewashing Julia.
in which his sister Ethelwyn Arthur-Jones-
that's how good name is kept in the
family!-played Tririe Blenkinsop, the
naughty niece of good Bishop who is
never seen. The youngster, who has since
displayed talent as an amateur actor,
did not think much of his fathers comedy.
"Do people really do things like that?"
he inquired. after the love scene. when
is II going to be funny1" he asked before
the final curtain had fallen.
Now this embryo critic put his finger on
the weak spots Of the new play at our Gar
rick-it was produced at the Garrick in
London, The humor does not roll upon
you in avalanche fashion, nor is the love
element very convincing in its sincerity.
The playwright tried his hand at the
delineation of manners rather than of
passions. His Shanctonbury folk are tepid
and conventional. and If the piece has any
value it lies in its neat character drawing
and not in its thrills. Mr.. Jones has never
been less theatric. We resent the intro
duction of the Benbops because they mme-
diately suggest artificial situations. Their
dislodgement from the house. the return of
old mother BenboU in the last act and tho
implication of Beris Piakney in the muddle
are all too redolent of stage carpentry,
of those expedients dear to lovers of saw
dust and orange peel intrigue,
SO much must be said of Mr. Jones.
When he is natural he is very, very good;
when he is melodramatic he is worse than
horrid. While he has not developed the
character OF julia W;1n, he has contrved,
nevertheless, to give us an admirably
sketched gentlewoman with past suffi-
ciently piquant to interest. And it Is
with no especial desire to shirk denoue-
ment that the ending is shrouded in con-
ventional mystery. If we found out that
julia had been Allied morganatically to
Duke What's -his-name. we should not
have slept any better after the play Some
thing did occur in Homburg; Of that there
can be no doubt. What it was, what the
enigma Of the puff box, of the travelling
bag and comb was no one will ever know.
The secret will die with its author, as van
ished the secret Of the Lady and the Tiger.
admitted to Bill how sacred the affair had
been and Bill did the gentlemanly thing
when he burned the letters. And let us
be grateful that the confagration thereof
did not flare up meodramatically.
The first act Of withdrawing. julia
despite its leagues of talk, is more real than
the other two, though the second finds
20, ,,yitl tbo ho
Of naturalism. even unto dulness, sounded
In the first, while in the following acts there
were false notes in the general harmony
Bourgeois, you will say, is the entire comedy.
Well, why not? The exploitation OF the
bourgeois has been a favorite diversion
in English literature from Fielding to
Thaokeray. In France 1t was eleyated
into an artistic rubric and degenerated
into an insane batting Of the middle classes
by Balzac, Gautier. Flaubert, De Goncourt,
De Maupassant and Zoh. The cooler
blooded temperaments Of Anthony Troll
lope and George Eliot realized the middle
class with it's weaknesses more steadily,
more alphabetically than either Thack-
cray or Dickens. Dull as Trollope can be,
he Ia delightful IN his tales Of cathedral
towns with all their little. busy chickering's,
clerical intrigues and general air Of shabby
snobbishness.
There are moments in @White washing
Julia"-what futile title-when Trollope
70 brought to the minds eye. The tent
scene. for example-it is pure Trollopian
in the early manner OF the good old Victor
ian fiction maker. He had his political
side, his "Phineas Finn" side. when he
described the House and its parliamentary
tactics like an old stager; but in "Barchester
Towers, "in any one of the inimitable books
whsse Mrs. Proudie figures, there we get
the great Trollope, the Jane Austen In
trousers. the photographer of Things
Seen in narrow, pre- JUDGED community.
Some of Mr.. Joness minor characters
slight as they are in substance suggest types.
Mr.. Sampdys stands solidly on his feet; so
does Bill tlKnsfeet-though, curiously
enough, the last named never quite engages
your sympathies. He is bluff. robust,
good tempered, has had gay life, and in
the crumpled leaves of his healthy middle
age he sees chance for an Indian summer.
Guy Standing made OF him altogether too
young, too fashionable, a man. Blu is not
elegant, he is not very refined He is a
gentleman who has fought the battle Of his
life bravely enough at the Criterion bar,
IL
in Paris on the bouevards, and perhaps
there at the American bar. But bars and
girls have been his tastes. No wonder his
sister, Lady Pinkney, was surprised at his
incurson into the field of botany and no
wonder she suspected this sudden passion
for flowers.
Mr. Jones wrote the part of Bill Stiliing-
f"t for Arthur Baurchier, the actor-man-
ager of the Garrick. Mr.. Baurchier is not
subtle in his methods. No one knew this
better than the dramatist. So we saw big,
bluff fellow with sombrero, looking for all
the world like Ralph Delmore of sinister
melodrama;ic fame, and sweeping all
Shanctonbury before him in an irresistiby
breezy gale. Mr.. Standings Interpretation
was cross between a clubman and youth
ful Downing street diplomat. Nor did his
jeiune attempts at passion instil his audi
ence with the proper respect for his sim
cerity. Mr.. Jones evidently did not take
seriously the sentiment Of bespattered
widow and reformed rake. So Mr.. Stand
ing is not to be blamed for a certain re-
moteness OF manner when he took Julia