Punch (86.1884)

Mat 17, 1884.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHaRJVaRL

229

“ SHERRI ’ AND WATER; OR, A SHADE SEVERE.

(A Legend of the Haymarlcet.)

“ Peat, Sir, and what may be the painting on the Curtain ? ”

“ That,” I replied to the individual in his old-fashioned cloak who
sat beside me in the Second Circle, “ that is a scene from the School
for Scandal.”

“ Upon my word you astonish me. I should know the play well,
and yet I fail to recognise it; hut when the critics of the Pit are4
driven into the Gallery, nothing should cause surprise.”

At this moment the Curtain rose. We had a Street in Bath. The
houses were built of Bath bricks. There was a sound of a horn, and
it was evident that it was supposed that the Bath Coach had just
arrived. To carry o ; this idea, some of the passengers were seen to
walk off, others were taken home in Bath chairs by Bath chairmen.
There was a good deal of bustle on the Stage, but no talking. Then
an ostler busied himself with a stable, and an apple-woman tried to
sell apples. The other shops, to complete the illusion, should have
sold Bath chaps, Bath buns, Bath towels, and so forth. No doubt
these were round the corner, off the Stage. A bill-sticker posted up
a play-bill. A lamp-lighter carried across the Stage his ladder.

“ Why, what’s all this?” cried my mysterious companion. “Hang
me! but I think they have changed the Comedy into a ballet of
action! Nay, I am wrong. Here come Fag and Thomas. They
were played by Lee Lewes and Fearon in ’seventy-five.”

Then for a few minutes we had the dialogue of the play. My com-

Messrs. Bancroft and Pinero adulterating some fine old “ Sherry.”

(After Gilray—some way.)

panion complained bitterly that his attention was distracted by the
business of the supers who represented the Bath townspeople.

“ Hang that circulating librarian and his books! ” he exclaimed.
“ Can’t he shut up his shop and have done with it! But what have
we here ? Why, as I live, Sir Lucius and Mistress LucyBut
. Sir Lucias dressed like that! More like a doctor ! No ! ’Gad it is
Sir Lucius ! They have misunderstood their cue. We ought to see
i nothing of them together until the Second Act, and then it should
he on the North Parade.”

But I explained that while “strictly preserving the text” (I
quoted from the play-bill) ‘ ‘ it had been found possible, by means of
i a few transpositions of the dialogue and some variation of the locality,
to avoid shifting the scenes in view of the audience.” And, 1 added,
“ that Mr. Bancroft and Mr. Pinero were jointly responsible for
i this arrangement of the Comedy.”

“Hang their impudence!” exclaimed my companion. “Why
shouldn’t the scenes be changed in the sight of the audience ?
and as for the transposition of the dialogue, 1 believe it is only trans-
posed to make the scene long enough for the performance of all that
super tomfoolery! ” I begged my companion to be more quiet,
though, strange to say, his outspoken remarks seemed to attract no
sort of attention from the people around us.

When the Act concluded with a procession of a Bath chair headed
by a torch-bearing footman, and a serenade sung seemingly by Sir
Lucius O’ Trigger (I think I recognised his voice) behind the scenes,
the indignation of my companion knew no bounds, and he declared
that “ they had begun by making the play into a ballet, and ended
by converting it into an opera ! ”

My strange fellow-playgoer was not too well pleased with the
scene of “ Mrs. Malaprop’s Lodgings ” in the Second Act. He
objected that there were too many chairs and sofas, saying that these
articles of furniture tempted the Ladies of the Company “to move

round from seat to seat like horses in a circus.” When the Curtain
fell he was extremely angry.

“ Why, how far have we got on ?” he asked, indignantly. “ The
chief objection to the Comedy when it was produced was that it was

Street in Bath. The Figures will “Work,”-—yes, but not Play.

too long, and yet here we have amassof unnecessary details, which irri-
tate the mind, and distract the attention. Who wanted, for instance,
to see that Negro page bringing in the tea of Mrs. Malaprop f ”

But he was loud in his praises of Mrs. Stirling, and said that she
was better than Mrs. Green, the original representative of the part.
This rather surprised me, as although old-fashioned in appearance,
my companion seemed to be a man in the prime of life. I could not
understand how he had been able to be present at the initial per-
formance of the Comedy more than a hundred years ago, as he
declared he had.

“ It was damned by the acting of Mr. Lee in the character of Sir
Lucius O’Trigger. And yet,” he added, with a smile, “do you know,
I’m certain I liked poor Mr. Lee better than I do Mr. Bishop ! As a
Dublin man I never saw two milder Irishmen in the whole course of
my experience.”

And then he began complaining of the acting generally, saying
that the representative of Julia would have been better suited with
the role of Lady Macbeth, “a part admirably adapted to her voice
and person,” and that “ Simplicity,” the maid, was only a “mode-
rately satisfactory soubrette.”

He was not over-pleased with the Scene of the Third Act described
in the playbill as’“A Boom in an Inn.” How did such a Scene
as that get there, he wanted to know. As Shakspeare had placed
the Witches on the heath, would anyone be warranted in making
their interview take place in a booth at a fair of the period, just,

The Tea-Boom in Bath Assembly-Booms. “ Please not to touch the figures.”

forsooth, to illustrate the manners and customs of that time ?
Certainly not. He wanted to know why Captain Jack was having
his head powdered, and what authority Mr. Bancroft and Mr.
Pinero had for sitting Faulkland down to breakfast.

“ I confess,” he said, as the Curtain fell for the third time, “ that