New-York tribune., 1911-01-09
THE DRAMA
Marie Tempest in "Vanity Fair"
at The New Theatre.

costumes and properties. seldom, lhdeeu, /
has this house done so well in these mat
ters. Now It not only leaves nothing TO
be desired with regard to them. but IT an
tcipates possibilities. II looks forward. i
II forces the reluctant hand Of time. 1t |
places electric bells in Rawdon Crawleys |
house In Curzon street, and electric lamps |
~ the Hotel du Pare, at Brussels. This is !
loing handsomely by 1915 a. D.. but it |
does rot seem to have astonished the Off |
GERS Of the allied armies or even the Mar
quis Of Steyne The latter is called
Steen" by some characters in the play, |
and Stain" BY others. The majority ap- |
pear 10 favor "Steen" II is a vote But |
In play there are, sometimes, other items
than scenery, and properties, and costumes
to be considered by reasonably intelligent
spectators. There are. it will be admitted,
the characters in the play. Now the char
acters in this play would be quite accept
able and the performapce would be very
fine indeed. were it not for Thackeray who
Will persist in putting himself between the
! lOokers-on and the stage and asking, i'm
/ pudently enough no doubt, what the queer
struttcrs and fretters OF the hour are doing
on the scene and with those names
]
son in the audience felt impened to
| send a copy of Thackerays Vanity Fair"
to the producers" at The New Theatre, so
that they might know what the novellst's
characters were like. Take Thackeray's /,
word for it. 1t is sufficient: Lord Steyne's /
shining bald head was fringed with red
hair. lie had thick. bushy eyebrows, with .
! little, twinkling bloodshot eyes, surround /
ed by thousand wrinkles. His jaw was
underhung, and when he laughed two white .
| buckteeth protruded themselves and gls-
tened sayagely In the midst Of the grin.
a short man was his Dordship .
broad chested and bow-legged." Mr.. Al .
bert Bruning, who was cast for the Mar
quis of Steyne, was nothing like the man .
described by Thackeray, did not even Sug- /
gest him, gave no hint that he had any .
idea of him, was as far from him as the |
Tower OF London is from the Washington .
Monument. Yet The New Theatre is quite /
happy.
| Time was when close resemblance 10
| the character depicted found itself regard |
| ed a fundamental requirement in acting.
| Nature or artifce made the player look like
| his part Not so st The New Theatre. it
| seems Take the case of Rawdon Crawley,
/ as Thackeray described him: "He is
very large young dandy. He Is six feet
| high, and speaks with a great voice Mr..
| Graham Browne has been specially engaged
/ 20 play this part Why? He is further
/ from It than the aforesaid Tower Is from
| the aforesaid Monument Mr.. Graham
! Browne is a small man with a thin voice,
and his Rawdon Crawley is not a dandy
/ and has no notion OF being one. Robert
uichens and Cosmo Gordon-Lennox, who
made the "dramatization," made Rawdon
Crawley a putty-partncr, which. decidedly,
! he was not. Mr.. Graham Browne makes
him as uninteresting, as unlfeilke. as one
Of those young club members in Israel
! the piece he played in with some erect last
season.
There was a person In the play callea
/ Sir Pitt Crawley, an unctuous, jolly SORT
of dog. who was not in the least Thack-
eray's Sir Pitt. Mr.. Calvert played hih
and PLAYED him TO as little purpose as need
he Sir Pitt, you read in Becky's letter TO
dearest, sweetest Amelia" was old
stumpy, short, vulgar, and very dirty
man. an old screw" and so on
/ Mr.. CaIverts Sir Pitt was vulgar, but there
was an end Of him. No other resemblance,
even If he did wear CATERS.
| Now. if you haven't a Rawdon Crawley,
| and IL you haven't a Marquis OF Steyne'
and If you haven't a Sir Pitt. in stage
version Of Vanity Fair" the high gods
might deign 20 leave, somewhere III view
/ at least, 2 certain Miss Rebecca sharp
There are indications Of her at The
New Theatre, signs, suggestions, but the
lady promises too much and seldom
fulfls Miss Marie Tempest (also specially
/ engaged is always going 70 he Becky
| Sharp. but only occasionally Is like her
She Is never demure as Becky was Wheh
at her deepest; and, as TO that, Miss Tenn
pests Becky is not deep at all Miss Tenn
nest PLAYS Becky Sharp in her best comic
onara manner. which was delightful for
comic opera. out Is disastrous for any al
tempt to portray this character Of Thack-
erav. This Becky Sharp, Miss Tempests,
never would have pulled the wool over
anyhody's eyes. As # was. she showed her
game I'm the first scene. which Becky
never would have done After that there
was nothing left for Miss Tempest to DO
but 70 wear exquisite gowns And all the
world knows how we'll she wears them.
There was no development Of character,
and some Of the attempts to indicate char
|
Miss Tempest's Becky at Gaunt House is
/ inclined 20 be sentimental over Rawdon,
who is in the Sponsing House, and she
makes as II TO go to him, which is pre-
cisely what Becky Sharp did not feel and
did not do and did not intend to do.
When George Osborne tripped over an
electric light wire in the Brussels hotel;
Wien a big dog, drawing much too small
cart 0or Belgium, declined to bulge In
the Marche aux F'eurs, and spoiled Miss
Ccehlan's scene, the audience laughed
more heartily than at any Of the intended
passases of the evening. II must not be
understood, though, that there was no good
acting. There was, indeed an abundance of
/ fair acting. and it could have been enjoyed
! # Won had not remembered every sixty
seconds that these players were supposed
TO be representing some OF the most famous
characters of Thackeray, and were only
here and there the least BIT like them. Why
20 outside for actors TO achieve this result?
! The New Theatres gain in adventures OF
! this kind must he imaginary chiefly The
prcsent play, IL 1t belongs to star cannot
| be added TO the repertory OF the house. If
| IL does not belong TO a star and can be
added 10 the ropertory IL would seem ad-
visable 10 have a company that can act 1t
without going outside for the principal per-
sons. Even so, why produce this play at
Iau? II is an inferior piece Of dramatic
/ work and the seven scenes in which II is
| arranged might be seventeen or seventy
without coming any closer TO the Ihack-
| Crayan spirit. As matter of fact, all that
! we have Of Vanity Fair" are the names Of
/ the characters and certain suggestions for