New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-06-14

1894 TO please n Victorian public; he
fore the new school in drama had made
much progress. Ibsen, though Mr.. Ar
cher and Mr.. Gosse were building his
pinchbeck throne, had not yet been OK
allied into a deity. The problem play
was still on the shelf. The futurist
drama was thing OF the future post
impressionism and cubism had as get
no sure foothold on the stage. Mr..
Bernard Shaw's star was above tho
horizon, but shining with an uncertain
light; as, for. that matter, ii still is.
Wilde was in such circumstances that
it was important TO him to write a play
: which managers would accept and he
public patronze His ideas of structure
were the ideas OF Scribe and Sardou;
from both Of whom he borrowed with
out scruple; as Mr.. Shaw has lately
borrowed. consciously or unconsciously,
from Smollett. in "Pygmalion."
So when the curtain rang up last
night at the ST. James's we found our
selves plunged headlong into a melo-
dramatic comedy; in which there was
less comedy than melodrama. And be-
D., hold, it was the public of 1894 in front
! as well as the play of 1894 on the
boards Nor does that seem strange
when you consider that the English
version of Sardou's Diplomacy" is
d, just at the end of run lasting more
than four hundred nights. Plus ceid
change plus c'eSt In meme chose. Miss
Julia Neilson-Mrs. Fred Terry-who
had created the heroine of the piece,
Lady Chiltern, twenty years before, sat
in the stalls Her daughter, Miss
Phyllis Nelson Terry, was playing the
same part on the stage in much the
same manner as her mother; with fine
natural gifts much perverted by mis-
taken training and methods. Mr.. Alfred
Bishop was once more Lord Caver-
sham; an actor of a school which never
grows old. The other characters were
newly cast and Mr.. Charles Hawtrey
had given place to Sir George Alex
ander as Lord Goring.
OF artihce, and its artifice is anything
but new. What Wilde really valued
himself upon was his stage diction. He
gives you paradox upon paradox, cpl
gram after epigram, with profuslon
not perhaps equal TO that of the I'M
portance of Being Earnest" but out
of the same mint. People who don
like him or his phrases would say out
Of the same machine, and indeed II Is
impossible to deny that in the produc-
ton of these rhetorical ornaments
there is something mechanical. After
you have listened to them for time
they become monotonous. Their ain
is to be unexpected, but the effort is
so continuous that the effect of sur
prise is soon lost. AS for the plot, ii
provides a succession of sensations;
only they also are turned out by
lathe. The situations do not convince;
the characters lack sincerity, and yet
as one climax succeeds another the in
terest is somehow kept alive and the
thrills last out the evening.
1t is, at any rate, a play in which not
less depends on the acting than on its
ingenious though threadbare incident,
and on finished repaTtee. Take away
Sir George Alexander and Miss Hilda
Moore and it might be difficult to re-
peat the success Of last night. On the
other hand il does not seem to matter
much who plays Sir Robert and Lady
Chiltern, though it is upon his past
and upon her rather priggish view of
him and his position that the interest
is supposed to be centred The pres
ent Sir Robert is without distinction
and the present Lady Chiltern is too
majestic and too impassive TO be SYM
pathetic. You don't really care what
4 happens to either or both. What you
care for is the authority with which
Lord Goring in the guise of a mere
CANDY handles issues of life and death
10 others and the supreme fascination
Of Miss Hlda Moores intriguing and
blackmailing adventures. They COM
pletely upset the balance of the play
as Wide wrote II, ana II is because
they do that last nights very inteHi-
gent audience during the first three
acts thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
In the fourth act the blackmailing Mrs.
Cheveley disappears altogether, Lord
Goring's own love affairs come to a
happy climax, Sir Robert and Lady
Chiltern make up their minds that his
rascally past does not matter. since
love is more than political morality;
and the curtain goes down in apathy.
No more accurate or resourceful
study is now TO be seen on the London
stage than this Of Lord Goring by Sir
George Alexander. 1t excites admira-
ton, but no surprise, since his art, with
all the minute touches which make a
completed whole, has long been known
as OF the first order.
The surprise came from Miss Hilda
Moore; young actress whose per-
sonality has henceforth to be reckoned
with. A challenging face. not strictly
beautiful but which none the less
draws you like a magnet. She might
say as Nine. Dorval. once name Of
renown in Paris, said: "Je nc suiS pas
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