DOI issue:
February 18, 1882
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17752#0084
Februaky 18, 1882.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAEIYARI.
77
THE YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY AT
THE PLAY.
Respected P.,—I took your advice, and went to see the Schoolfor
Scandal at the Vaudeville. I took Tomkyns of Balliol, who is an
awfully clever chap. Having presented a, nice young lady a nice
sixpence for a nice programme, containing all the names and
addresses of some of the principal decorators, upholsterers, and
furniture-makers in London, I saw a vast collection of tables, and
chairs, and clocks, and looking-glasses, just like a Bond Street Art-
shop; and mixed up with these was my Lady Sneerwell, who wore
a mustard-coloured wig (mind you, she was a Lady of the_ deepest
dye), saying nasty things, in a hard voice, to a kind of aconite-and-
arsenic-looking chap called Snake. Then entered a plum-coloured
Footman, who, however, turned out to be the villain of the play. |
This was Joseph Surface, played by Mr. Archer, whose render-
ing of this part Tomkyns told me, was “sxxhtle;” hut he struck
me as too quiet and insipid, even when he was not required to
disguise his villany. _ I
Then came a black and white heroine called Mana, played by
a Hiss Alma MxmRAY, who looked very pretty, talked copy-book
headings in a sad sepulchral voice, and was altogether a very
on a great deal .of side. He forgave her no end of faults, and when-
ever they were “ love all,” they began again, and she always won.
Sir JPeter is evidently “ up to snuff ” (as I said to Tomkyns), and
he takes a goodish lot of it during the play; but we all agreed at
this point, that if he was “ taking snuff,” the lady wasn’t “ taking
Cavendish,” but only just at this point, when I was hurt to see the
old man scored off in this way.
Still Lady Teazle redeemed all her misdeeds by one splendid bit
of acting, when Charlie Surface, without so much as “ by your
ticket of leave,” chucked t-he screen down in Joseph's library of
Furniture Puzzle Scene— To tind Charles Surface.
depressing and miserable young person, and not a bit the sort of
girl Charlie Surface,—good sort, Charlie, I tell you—would have
fallen desperately in love with. But the love-making part was
very heavy; only, thank goodness! there wasn’t much of it.
I became a bit livelier when a funny, and festive old lady,
Mrs. Sugar Can——I mean Mrs. Sterling- Candour, began to tell
stories for which she would most undoubtedly have been “ sconced ”
had she told them at our Common Room.
Crab-Thorn-Tree was sour, and wrinkled, and brown. Tomkyns
tells me he is the boss of this show. He speaks with a curious little
husky gasp _ at the beginning of every sentence, which is very
comical. Sir Benjamin Backbite was played by a gentleman with
a Chinese name, and an effeminate snob he was. Tom:kyns said
“ his foolish vapourings were in the true spirit of the Macaroni
of the period.” We all pretended to agree with Tomkyns, as he
knows a lot.
Well, Sir, these people told no end of queer stories, and talked
anecdotal foolishness, and went on much the same as everybody does
nowadays, and then a house came down into the middle of the
drawing-room,* and into it walked such a dear old chap in a green
eoat. _ Isn’t he an Actor ? He has the quaintest ways, he is
every inch a gentleman, and, bless his old soul! he has the right
loval tender heart under that green coat. I could see the piece over
and over again, if it were only for the sake of Mr. Farren’s Sir
Beter Teazlef
He is married to an hysterical, giggling, dash-it-about, “ flaunting,
extravagant quean ” (as a Militia Sergeant with a big moustache
sang at a wine later on in the play). They rowed shockingly ; she
nagged him, skipped round him, and finaliy sneaked a cool two
hundred out of the old boy, and wouldn’t even give bim a kiss for
it. Then they played a sort of love-tennis game. He served
worsted fruits, white cats, dock’d coach-horses, and butlers at her,
and she volleyed baek Cousin Sophy’s critieisms, and Bears and
dangling old Bachelors over the net to him. Miss Cavendish’s,
that is, Lady Teazle's, delivery was more rapid than his, and she put
. * A very ingenious cbange of scene. But the young man from the country
18 clearly a novice.—Ed.
t Hear! hear! It is a first-rate performance.—Ed.
Screen Scene—Lady Teazle discovered.
painted books. Then, as she spoke from the back of the stage, her
voice came down to us so tenderly and wistfully that it shut- up the
boys’ laughing, and that’s saying a great deal. And the way she
! withered up the plum-coloured Mr. Hypocrite, and refused to back
! Archer at any price, was superbly seorching. I don’t see though
why she should be diseovered in such a carefully posed statuesque
attitude. Surely at that moment Lady T. would have tried to
make a bolt of it, and she might just be caught in the instant of a
dash for the door which is close at hand. The position of this door
! is a mistake.* (Tomkyns says all Lady Teazles stand like that,
j and that it ’s “ traditional: ”—hang tradition !)
This is the crack scene of the play, and everybody plays it well;
. but I think Charlie was wrong to come in and bow to us after his
jolly laugh at the bewildered trio. (Tomkyns says it is a “trad-i-
tional call that’s Tomkyns all over!)
Mr. Neville is a rattling, cheery, dashing chap. Go and see how
j he sells all his ancestors to his Uncle (no, not what you mean, but
something like it), all but an ill-looking little fellow over a settee—
a kind of spidery sofa,—and note how tenderly he bends over that
scrubby iittle picture, and flicks the dust from it ’s face with a lace
handkerchief—that loving flick was “ good business” for Charlie in
more ways than one.f
This XJncle Oliver was evidently meant by the fellow who wrote
the play to be a jolly old boy with a warm heart and a taste for
amateur theatricals, but Mr. Haclean’s notion of him was harsh,
surly, and grumpy. Tomkyns says he is a very steady and con-
scientious actor! He ’s a deal too steady and conscientious for
JJncle Oliver. Tomkyns says the Rowley for this Oliver (often
wondered where this proverb came from) is an old bore, who
ought to be superaxmuated. He creeps in and out of the play witb
a benevolent smUe ; and, when he gets a chance, sticks his hand on
his hip, crooks his off leg, and poses and proses to his heart’s content.
J.t seemed to me he was just the sort of nuisance such a confidential
old family servant would be. The Moses was f'unny, to give him
his due—I think he might give us a little more of it in the make-
up—though the voice would have provoked aU Russia. Modern
Moseses drive broughams, and give you dry sherry and cigars,
but the dialogue is just the same. Moses is Mr. Righton, whom I
have seen somewhere else playing a Jew in a burlesque, when I
liked him very much better.
The play ended by the aconite-and-arsenic chap turning up again
and telling the truth, and Charlie marries Maria.
You said you ’d like to hear from me on the subject, and so I ’ve
sent you this, and am Yours ever, J vck in a Box.
* Quite rigbt.—Ed.
t Glad to see that our Toung Man was struck by this.—Ed.
Sir Edward Watkin’s Chef-Douvres.—The Channel Tunnel.
Sir Garnet Wolseley’s Bogie.—The Channel Tunnel.
Vol. 82.
8—2
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAEIYARI.
77
THE YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY AT
THE PLAY.
Respected P.,—I took your advice, and went to see the Schoolfor
Scandal at the Vaudeville. I took Tomkyns of Balliol, who is an
awfully clever chap. Having presented a, nice young lady a nice
sixpence for a nice programme, containing all the names and
addresses of some of the principal decorators, upholsterers, and
furniture-makers in London, I saw a vast collection of tables, and
chairs, and clocks, and looking-glasses, just like a Bond Street Art-
shop; and mixed up with these was my Lady Sneerwell, who wore
a mustard-coloured wig (mind you, she was a Lady of the_ deepest
dye), saying nasty things, in a hard voice, to a kind of aconite-and-
arsenic-looking chap called Snake. Then entered a plum-coloured
Footman, who, however, turned out to be the villain of the play. |
This was Joseph Surface, played by Mr. Archer, whose render-
ing of this part Tomkyns told me, was “sxxhtle;” hut he struck
me as too quiet and insipid, even when he was not required to
disguise his villany. _ I
Then came a black and white heroine called Mana, played by
a Hiss Alma MxmRAY, who looked very pretty, talked copy-book
headings in a sad sepulchral voice, and was altogether a very
on a great deal .of side. He forgave her no end of faults, and when-
ever they were “ love all,” they began again, and she always won.
Sir JPeter is evidently “ up to snuff ” (as I said to Tomkyns), and
he takes a goodish lot of it during the play; but we all agreed at
this point, that if he was “ taking snuff,” the lady wasn’t “ taking
Cavendish,” but only just at this point, when I was hurt to see the
old man scored off in this way.
Still Lady Teazle redeemed all her misdeeds by one splendid bit
of acting, when Charlie Surface, without so much as “ by your
ticket of leave,” chucked t-he screen down in Joseph's library of
Furniture Puzzle Scene— To tind Charles Surface.
depressing and miserable young person, and not a bit the sort of
girl Charlie Surface,—good sort, Charlie, I tell you—would have
fallen desperately in love with. But the love-making part was
very heavy; only, thank goodness! there wasn’t much of it.
I became a bit livelier when a funny, and festive old lady,
Mrs. Sugar Can——I mean Mrs. Sterling- Candour, began to tell
stories for which she would most undoubtedly have been “ sconced ”
had she told them at our Common Room.
Crab-Thorn-Tree was sour, and wrinkled, and brown. Tomkyns
tells me he is the boss of this show. He speaks with a curious little
husky gasp _ at the beginning of every sentence, which is very
comical. Sir Benjamin Backbite was played by a gentleman with
a Chinese name, and an effeminate snob he was. Tom:kyns said
“ his foolish vapourings were in the true spirit of the Macaroni
of the period.” We all pretended to agree with Tomkyns, as he
knows a lot.
Well, Sir, these people told no end of queer stories, and talked
anecdotal foolishness, and went on much the same as everybody does
nowadays, and then a house came down into the middle of the
drawing-room,* and into it walked such a dear old chap in a green
eoat. _ Isn’t he an Actor ? He has the quaintest ways, he is
every inch a gentleman, and, bless his old soul! he has the right
loval tender heart under that green coat. I could see the piece over
and over again, if it were only for the sake of Mr. Farren’s Sir
Beter Teazlef
He is married to an hysterical, giggling, dash-it-about, “ flaunting,
extravagant quean ” (as a Militia Sergeant with a big moustache
sang at a wine later on in the play). They rowed shockingly ; she
nagged him, skipped round him, and finaliy sneaked a cool two
hundred out of the old boy, and wouldn’t even give bim a kiss for
it. Then they played a sort of love-tennis game. He served
worsted fruits, white cats, dock’d coach-horses, and butlers at her,
and she volleyed baek Cousin Sophy’s critieisms, and Bears and
dangling old Bachelors over the net to him. Miss Cavendish’s,
that is, Lady Teazle's, delivery was more rapid than his, and she put
. * A very ingenious cbange of scene. But the young man from the country
18 clearly a novice.—Ed.
t Hear! hear! It is a first-rate performance.—Ed.
Screen Scene—Lady Teazle discovered.
painted books. Then, as she spoke from the back of the stage, her
voice came down to us so tenderly and wistfully that it shut- up the
boys’ laughing, and that’s saying a great deal. And the way she
! withered up the plum-coloured Mr. Hypocrite, and refused to back
! Archer at any price, was superbly seorching. I don’t see though
why she should be diseovered in such a carefully posed statuesque
attitude. Surely at that moment Lady T. would have tried to
make a bolt of it, and she might just be caught in the instant of a
dash for the door which is close at hand. The position of this door
! is a mistake.* (Tomkyns says all Lady Teazles stand like that,
j and that it ’s “ traditional: ”—hang tradition !)
This is the crack scene of the play, and everybody plays it well;
. but I think Charlie was wrong to come in and bow to us after his
jolly laugh at the bewildered trio. (Tomkyns says it is a “trad-i-
tional call that’s Tomkyns all over!)
Mr. Neville is a rattling, cheery, dashing chap. Go and see how
j he sells all his ancestors to his Uncle (no, not what you mean, but
something like it), all but an ill-looking little fellow over a settee—
a kind of spidery sofa,—and note how tenderly he bends over that
scrubby iittle picture, and flicks the dust from it ’s face with a lace
handkerchief—that loving flick was “ good business” for Charlie in
more ways than one.f
This XJncle Oliver was evidently meant by the fellow who wrote
the play to be a jolly old boy with a warm heart and a taste for
amateur theatricals, but Mr. Haclean’s notion of him was harsh,
surly, and grumpy. Tomkyns says he is a very steady and con-
scientious actor! He ’s a deal too steady and conscientious for
JJncle Oliver. Tomkyns says the Rowley for this Oliver (often
wondered where this proverb came from) is an old bore, who
ought to be superaxmuated. He creeps in and out of the play witb
a benevolent smUe ; and, when he gets a chance, sticks his hand on
his hip, crooks his off leg, and poses and proses to his heart’s content.
J.t seemed to me he was just the sort of nuisance such a confidential
old family servant would be. The Moses was f'unny, to give him
his due—I think he might give us a little more of it in the make-
up—though the voice would have provoked aU Russia. Modern
Moseses drive broughams, and give you dry sherry and cigars,
but the dialogue is just the same. Moses is Mr. Righton, whom I
have seen somewhere else playing a Jew in a burlesque, when I
liked him very much better.
The play ended by the aconite-and-arsenic chap turning up again
and telling the truth, and Charlie marries Maria.
You said you ’d like to hear from me on the subject, and so I ’ve
sent you this, and am Yours ever, J vck in a Box.
* Quite rigbt.—Ed.
t Glad to see that our Toung Man was struck by this.—Ed.
Sir Edward Watkin’s Chef-Douvres.—The Channel Tunnel.
Sir Garnet Wolseley’s Bogie.—The Channel Tunnel.
Vol. 82.
8—2