DOI Heft:
November 20, 1880
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17764#0236
November 20, 1880.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
229
ANNE MIE; OR, LA GRANDE DUTCHESSE.
The story of Anne Mie is simply this: At seventeen Anne is
betrayed by an English Engineer, whom her father stabs, and leaves
for dead. That’s Act I. Eighteen years elapse; JDirksen, her
father, is imbecile, and haunted by the ghost of his victim. Anne
Mie's daughter is passed off
as her niece, Lise, in the
village where they have
come to settle. Koenraad,
a young Dutchman, will
marry Lise if her parentage
is without stain. The Eng-
lish Engineer turns up in
time to “ make an honest
woman ” of Anne Mie,
which legitimises Lise,—
thereby converting the play
into a specimen of the Legi-
timate Drama,— and all ends
happily—as far as the cha-
racters are concerned. This
takes four Acts to tell, and
there is a villain in it who, except as useful in making a scene now and
then and diverting attention from the main incidents, is rather in the
way than otherwise, and is got rid of directly real business is meant.
Now, in a Dutch piece where they are all boers together, it would
be invidious to select any one character as a greater hore—we should
write “boer”—than the rest. What a beautiful chance for an
appropriate Dutch drinking-song, to the tune of “ When we were
hoys together,” has been lost by not letting Messrs. Fernandfz, De
Lange—a small boer—and Flockton—an awful boer—sing a
finale of
When we were boers,
Merry, merry boers,
"When we were boers together,
The Arch Anne Mie and The Fiend.
Seductio ad absurdum.
which would at least have had the merit of bringing down the
curtain long before its time.
Not having seen the original D utch play, we are unable to draw a com-
parison between the two,
but are free to judge Anne
Mie — pronounced Annie
Mee— as an English play
on its own merits. As long
as the drama was in Dutch,
it was lauded to the skies
as being something mar-
vellous. But once put
into plain English the
spell was broken.
The story is neither new,
nor sensational, nor ex-
citing. It is a simple story
simply told in plain,
straightforward language.
The dialogue is generally
natural and not above the social status of the speakers. The stage
business is good, the pictures of Dutch life are quaint and interesting,
and the acting fair, but decidedly not great.
What on earth tempted Miss Genevieve Ward to play, or rather
to attempt to play, the part of a young and Jovely girl of sweet
seventeen, as Anne Mie is supposed to be in the First Act ? “There,”
may the adapter well say to himself, “there wa's the weight that
pulled me down, 0 Crummies ! ” Next we may well ask
What did induce
Mr. Edgar Bruce,
to undertake the part of the Gay Young Engineer, the lover of Anne
Mie in the First Act ? Seeing them together he really has the air
of a “young man from the
country,” who is a greater
fool than he looks, and is
in a general way very
much to be pitied. Mr.
Bruce is capital
bustling, touch-and-go,
light-comedy parts, but
where tenderness, pathos,
and a certain dignity are
absolutely necessary to
prevent the character becoming ludicrous—and specially necessary
with such a very knowing Anne Mie, who looks as if she were up to
every move on the sea-board of Dutchland—Mr. Bruce, to put it
plainly and colloquially, is “ not in it.”
In this unfortunate First Act, which need not have been retained,
as it is only a prologue that subsequent dialogue explains over and
About this time Anne Mie falls a
LITTLE FLAT.
over again, Anne Mie has a friend in Neeltje, an elderly, vixenish
spinster, between 'whose age and that of Anne Mie any mere spectator,
coming in late and ignorant of the piece, would find it rather diffi-
cult to.discriminate. In. the Second Act, when Anne Mie is supposed
to be eighteen years older, time has moved but slightly with her,
and scarcely at all with Neeltje.
Then when Mr. Bruce, who hasn’t been killed, turns up again, no
one feels any more interest in him and his attachment to Anne Mie
than they would in the haphazard appearance on the scene of a middle-
aged commercial traveller of gentlemanly exterior, and bearing a
distant resemblance to the lineaments of the great Duke of Wel-
lington. But as he does not attempt to trade on this peculiarity,
the spectator merely notices it’ as a remarkable feature in Mr. Bruce’s
performance, and nothing more..
The fact is, the hero and heroine—the light-comedy young English
Engineer and the arch Dutchess, as represented at the Prince
of Wales’s—are a hopelessly uninteresting couple. Not so, Mr.
Robertson, as Koenraad Keel, the lover of Lise, played by Miss
Graham with much feel-
ing and fan too much
voice—which is Mr. Ro-
bertson’s fault also ; so
much so, that in the Love
Scene where both want to
meet as quietly as possible,
and not attract the atten-
tion of Anne Mie, who is
writing in the next room
with the door open, they,
with an artfulness pecu-
liar to double - Dutch
people, shout at each other
at the top of their voices,
and bawl sweet words of
love in one another’s ears
as though they were merely two accidental visitors spending a
pleasant half-hour In an Asylum for Deaf Patients.
Mr. Flockton—as the wicked Dutch Orphan, the perpetual burden
of whose plaint is
“ 0 if I had some one to lore me ! ”
—is very good, that is, as the conventional melodramatic villain who
goes about hating everybody until overtaken by poetic justice, which
in this takes the very mild shape of simply getting himself kicked out
of a Dutch pothouse by an Uncivil Engineer.
If Mr. Fernandez be intended to represent an old Dutch farmer
who in happier and earlier days has served his apprenticeship to a
costermonger with a donkey-cart in Whitechapel, and still retains,
in his old age, a smack of the chick-a-leary slouch and tone of voice,
then the highest praise is due to this artist for his admirable repre-
sentation of a most difficult character. But if, on the other hand,
this is not the idea intended to be conveyed, then he is a comparative
failure.
Under certain conditions Anne Mie may yet flourish, but with those
conditions the present Star of Tottenham Court Road would find it
rather difficult to comply.
On Chrononhotonthologos at the Gaiety Matinee, and the new
afterpiece at the Royalty, fairly advertised as an Eastern Extrava-
ganza, and now most unfairly described as a Burlesque, we shall
have something serious to say next week.
BRUTES BEWARE!
“ Omnibus drivers and cabmen will find it useful to take note of the fact
that Metropolitan Magistrates have now resolved to make life rather unplea-
sant for persons who maltreat beasts of burden.”—Standard.
It’s very well each Magistrate of London town proposes,
To make the lives of cruel men no longer beds of roses.
Whoe’er ill-treats his horses now, they’ve made an understanding
Shall have no option of a fine, no gentle reprimanding.
Such things have been of no effect, the cruel-hearted driver
For paying, say a tiny fine, has never cared a stiver.
He’s given the money with a grin, and never felt remorse
The while he lashed with cruel thong the ever-patient horse.
The animals work night and day o’er flint and stones and gravel.
And scores of them are very lame and quite unfit to travel;
And under cover of the night the drivers, as we know,
Put hapless creatures in the shafts with marks of many a blow.
But now the Magistrates have said such monsters, without fail,
Shall not be punished with a fine, but straightway go to gaol;
And there they may reflect in peace, through all the weary day,
That cruelty to animals does not exactly pay !
Agricultural Implements required for Digging Potatoes
in Mato.—Two Field Pieces !
Dutch Mettle—foiled !
Vol. 79.
8
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
229
ANNE MIE; OR, LA GRANDE DUTCHESSE.
The story of Anne Mie is simply this: At seventeen Anne is
betrayed by an English Engineer, whom her father stabs, and leaves
for dead. That’s Act I. Eighteen years elapse; JDirksen, her
father, is imbecile, and haunted by the ghost of his victim. Anne
Mie's daughter is passed off
as her niece, Lise, in the
village where they have
come to settle. Koenraad,
a young Dutchman, will
marry Lise if her parentage
is without stain. The Eng-
lish Engineer turns up in
time to “ make an honest
woman ” of Anne Mie,
which legitimises Lise,—
thereby converting the play
into a specimen of the Legi-
timate Drama,— and all ends
happily—as far as the cha-
racters are concerned. This
takes four Acts to tell, and
there is a villain in it who, except as useful in making a scene now and
then and diverting attention from the main incidents, is rather in the
way than otherwise, and is got rid of directly real business is meant.
Now, in a Dutch piece where they are all boers together, it would
be invidious to select any one character as a greater hore—we should
write “boer”—than the rest. What a beautiful chance for an
appropriate Dutch drinking-song, to the tune of “ When we were
hoys together,” has been lost by not letting Messrs. Fernandfz, De
Lange—a small boer—and Flockton—an awful boer—sing a
finale of
When we were boers,
Merry, merry boers,
"When we were boers together,
The Arch Anne Mie and The Fiend.
Seductio ad absurdum.
which would at least have had the merit of bringing down the
curtain long before its time.
Not having seen the original D utch play, we are unable to draw a com-
parison between the two,
but are free to judge Anne
Mie — pronounced Annie
Mee— as an English play
on its own merits. As long
as the drama was in Dutch,
it was lauded to the skies
as being something mar-
vellous. But once put
into plain English the
spell was broken.
The story is neither new,
nor sensational, nor ex-
citing. It is a simple story
simply told in plain,
straightforward language.
The dialogue is generally
natural and not above the social status of the speakers. The stage
business is good, the pictures of Dutch life are quaint and interesting,
and the acting fair, but decidedly not great.
What on earth tempted Miss Genevieve Ward to play, or rather
to attempt to play, the part of a young and Jovely girl of sweet
seventeen, as Anne Mie is supposed to be in the First Act ? “There,”
may the adapter well say to himself, “there wa's the weight that
pulled me down, 0 Crummies ! ” Next we may well ask
What did induce
Mr. Edgar Bruce,
to undertake the part of the Gay Young Engineer, the lover of Anne
Mie in the First Act ? Seeing them together he really has the air
of a “young man from the
country,” who is a greater
fool than he looks, and is
in a general way very
much to be pitied. Mr.
Bruce is capital
bustling, touch-and-go,
light-comedy parts, but
where tenderness, pathos,
and a certain dignity are
absolutely necessary to
prevent the character becoming ludicrous—and specially necessary
with such a very knowing Anne Mie, who looks as if she were up to
every move on the sea-board of Dutchland—Mr. Bruce, to put it
plainly and colloquially, is “ not in it.”
In this unfortunate First Act, which need not have been retained,
as it is only a prologue that subsequent dialogue explains over and
About this time Anne Mie falls a
LITTLE FLAT.
over again, Anne Mie has a friend in Neeltje, an elderly, vixenish
spinster, between 'whose age and that of Anne Mie any mere spectator,
coming in late and ignorant of the piece, would find it rather diffi-
cult to.discriminate. In. the Second Act, when Anne Mie is supposed
to be eighteen years older, time has moved but slightly with her,
and scarcely at all with Neeltje.
Then when Mr. Bruce, who hasn’t been killed, turns up again, no
one feels any more interest in him and his attachment to Anne Mie
than they would in the haphazard appearance on the scene of a middle-
aged commercial traveller of gentlemanly exterior, and bearing a
distant resemblance to the lineaments of the great Duke of Wel-
lington. But as he does not attempt to trade on this peculiarity,
the spectator merely notices it’ as a remarkable feature in Mr. Bruce’s
performance, and nothing more..
The fact is, the hero and heroine—the light-comedy young English
Engineer and the arch Dutchess, as represented at the Prince
of Wales’s—are a hopelessly uninteresting couple. Not so, Mr.
Robertson, as Koenraad Keel, the lover of Lise, played by Miss
Graham with much feel-
ing and fan too much
voice—which is Mr. Ro-
bertson’s fault also ; so
much so, that in the Love
Scene where both want to
meet as quietly as possible,
and not attract the atten-
tion of Anne Mie, who is
writing in the next room
with the door open, they,
with an artfulness pecu-
liar to double - Dutch
people, shout at each other
at the top of their voices,
and bawl sweet words of
love in one another’s ears
as though they were merely two accidental visitors spending a
pleasant half-hour In an Asylum for Deaf Patients.
Mr. Flockton—as the wicked Dutch Orphan, the perpetual burden
of whose plaint is
“ 0 if I had some one to lore me ! ”
—is very good, that is, as the conventional melodramatic villain who
goes about hating everybody until overtaken by poetic justice, which
in this takes the very mild shape of simply getting himself kicked out
of a Dutch pothouse by an Uncivil Engineer.
If Mr. Fernandez be intended to represent an old Dutch farmer
who in happier and earlier days has served his apprenticeship to a
costermonger with a donkey-cart in Whitechapel, and still retains,
in his old age, a smack of the chick-a-leary slouch and tone of voice,
then the highest praise is due to this artist for his admirable repre-
sentation of a most difficult character. But if, on the other hand,
this is not the idea intended to be conveyed, then he is a comparative
failure.
Under certain conditions Anne Mie may yet flourish, but with those
conditions the present Star of Tottenham Court Road would find it
rather difficult to comply.
On Chrononhotonthologos at the Gaiety Matinee, and the new
afterpiece at the Royalty, fairly advertised as an Eastern Extrava-
ganza, and now most unfairly described as a Burlesque, we shall
have something serious to say next week.
BRUTES BEWARE!
“ Omnibus drivers and cabmen will find it useful to take note of the fact
that Metropolitan Magistrates have now resolved to make life rather unplea-
sant for persons who maltreat beasts of burden.”—Standard.
It’s very well each Magistrate of London town proposes,
To make the lives of cruel men no longer beds of roses.
Whoe’er ill-treats his horses now, they’ve made an understanding
Shall have no option of a fine, no gentle reprimanding.
Such things have been of no effect, the cruel-hearted driver
For paying, say a tiny fine, has never cared a stiver.
He’s given the money with a grin, and never felt remorse
The while he lashed with cruel thong the ever-patient horse.
The animals work night and day o’er flint and stones and gravel.
And scores of them are very lame and quite unfit to travel;
And under cover of the night the drivers, as we know,
Put hapless creatures in the shafts with marks of many a blow.
But now the Magistrates have said such monsters, without fail,
Shall not be punished with a fine, but straightway go to gaol;
And there they may reflect in peace, through all the weary day,
That cruelty to animals does not exactly pay !
Agricultural Implements required for Digging Potatoes
in Mato.—Two Field Pieces !
Dutch Mettle—foiled !
Vol. 79.
8