Punch: Punch (81.1881)

232

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[November 19, 1881.

MiMI ; OR, THE GENTLE GENT AND THE
GENTEEL GIPSY.

Me. Dion Bouctcault's Mimi is a Bohemian girl, not the
Bohemian who dreamt she dwelt in marble halls, &c., but a gipsy of
" the days when we went gipsying—a long time ago." Yes, Mr.
Boucicatjxt, emphatically a long time ago, a very long time ago,
when albums were in fashion in drawing-rooms, when strong drinks
were handed round at aristocratic evening parties, and when there
was a canal within measurable distance of May Fair. "The Author,"
says the bill, '' desires to draw attention to La Vie de Boheme, by
Henri Murger, which inspires two scenes in the latter part of this
play," and it would have been far better for Mr. Dion Bouctcault,
had he stuck to his own inspiration and not gone in for a Sub-Murger
which has extinguished the not very strong name. Och ! Murger in
Irish ! but sure 'tis a pity to see the Author of The Colleen Bawn,
Arrah-na-Pogue, and The Shanghraun giving us such a weak-
knee'd, old-fashioned, halfpenny-journal-novel kind of play as is
this Mimi. On its first night the expiring Mimi, under the unfor-
tunate inspiration of too much Murger, called for her Muff, that she
might die with it on her lap—and the audience laughed. Fatal!
On the second night of Mimi the Muff was cut out,—at least the
"property" muff was, but
the real muff of the piece, the
wretched muff Leo, the lover,
remained in, and as no
change had taken place in
his character, the audience,
though they didn't laugh,
were simply apathetic, itbeing
impossible for anyone to feel
the smallest interest in two
such feeble creatures as the
sentimental Mimi the genteel
gipsy, and the youth who
bears the terrible name of Leo,
but who is the most lamb-like
young man we've seen for
some time.

Mr. John Clayton repre- M,, -rror,rT7 v„„niH
Herr Max-imus; or, KPr,ts n stout German and i, Ll i
the Unlimited Mail 2 1 merman, ana as he ought to have

me unmiuwajn.au. -^ears a sort of uniform which appeared at an
at once suggests the idea of evening party in
his being an overgrown postman who has become Mr. Kyrle Bellew's
too big for the post, and has, consecpiently, dress-clothes,
retired from work—with the official livery and
apparently the results of a partially successful Post-Office robbery.

Mr. Henry Neville is " gallant and chivalrous"—(this is
always the safe thing to say of Mr. Neville in any part)—as
Sandy McFlrath the Bohemian Artist, and Mr. One Curl Bellew

as Leo the Lamb-like, had far
better have been out of it alto-
gether, or if he had stayed in, he

Leo the Lamb, who has gone through some kind of ceremony like
jumping over a broomstick, or tossing a lucky shilling, with Mimi,
which involves marriage, now leaves her without any ceremony
at all! And yet some clever person has pointed out that there is no
villain in the play. Well, perhaps not in the strictly moral and
melodramatic sense, but, as a blunder is worse than a crime, so a
noodle is worse than a criminal, and so Leo the Lamb is unconsci-
ously (because a conceited idiot) a black sheep whose wool is of the
deepest dye.

Mimi follows him to London, where she has never been before in her
life, and here she intuitively picks out his mother's house in May-
fair—(what more natural ?)—and is taken up-stairs into the drawing-
room by Max, the German Postman,—and again we ask what more
natural, and what more likely in the circumstances ? Then Mimi
(Miss Marion Terry), who is generally overhearing something
which causes her to stagger, swoon, and flop, and support herself
against the wall in a variety of picturesque attitudes—as if an artist
and a photographer were dodging her about everywhere to get the
best pose possible—after hiding in the smoking-room, listening to a
conversation, and having a pretty sharp passage of arms with the
Lady Maude, totters down-stairs to the front-door, on her way,
perhaps, to Totter-nham Court Load ; but even then the Regent's
Park Canal is not within five minutes' walk.

Leo the Lamb, learning that Mimi, his Broomstick Bride, has
just been and gone, and not yet done it, so that there is plenty
of time—considering she can only stagger and totter and flop, and
hasn't got the strength of a wounded rabbit to drag her slow length
along,—to overtake her in the street, and save her life,—instead of at
once dashing down the stairs, and sending Max one way, Furridge,
the comic servant (who has been either a Gyp or a Gipsy, or both)

To One Curl Bellew. Beware of Mimi-cry!

should have followed the Author's example of directing the audience's
attention to the Murger inspiration, and have insisted on a line in
the bill intimating that his performance was inspired by the pecu-
liarities of Mr. Henry Irving as Louis dei Franchi.

Lady Maude Kennedy is given to Mrs. Bernard-Beere, "by
the kind permission of Messrs. A. & S. Gatti," the well-known
Confectioners, Restaurateurs, and Ice-Purveyors, who, it seems, let
this lady out with the ices and other refreshments, Beere included ;
and, we regret to say, that in spite of our real appreciation of this
Actress's talents, we soon began to think that even the Divine
Sarah in the role of Lady Maude would have had to be emphatically
put down in the bills as Madame Bernhardt Bore. This Lady
Maude is madly in love with Leo the Lamb, pursues him ener-
getically,—appearing therefore in this Act as a Mrs. Leo Hunter,—
and runs him to earth in the Gipsy encampment, where she tells him .

that if he will return to his distracted mother all will be forgiven, i A strong caste, and a weak piece.— Verb. Sap.

End of Act II.—Quite a rush after Mimi.

another, and Sandy another—any one of whom could have caught
her up at the pace she was going in less than half a jiffey,—stops
to make long speeches, to pitch into Lady Leo Hunter, to have a row
with his mother, to—as Box says in that immortal work—" throw off
the Lamb and assume the Lion," and then to do at last what natu-
rally he would have done at first, and what he _ had been doing for
some time previously, that is, run after Mimi, which he does,
followed by Max, Sandy, and the Comic Servant.

Away go the three after the Broomstick Bride, but, of course, too
late, and the Act-drop
falls on an anti-climax.
{N.B.—Nothing to do
with the other Max.)
Were this situation
whipped up sharp, the
long speeches omitted,
and the Lady Maude
Bernhardt Bore's part
considerably shortened,
there might be yet
some life in the piece.

In the last Act Mimi
comes in to die. Mrs.
Chillingham, Leo's
mother—who, from her
general readiness for a
row, might have been
appropriately called

Mrs. Warming''um—is Mrs. Chillingham Warming'em. "Bless you, my
now reconciled to her children ! Take 'em both, and be happy ! "
son, joins Mimi and

Leo's hands, and Mimi joins Maud's and Leo's— so that, had 'MVm
recovered, there would have been rather a trouble. Mrs. Warm-
ing'um feels the difficulty as she stands at the back of the chair with
the air of a woman who defies consequences, and appears to be
blessing the two before her, as though saying " There, Leo, my son.,
take 'em both and be happy ! " And then Mimi dies, and there s
an end of the Genteel Gipsy, and, as Mrs. Warming'um would say
to herself, "A good riddance of bad rubbish.'"