DOI issue:
July 5, 1884
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17757#0013
July 5, 1884.]
LETTERS TO SOME PEOPLE
About Other People's Business.
My Dear Miss Kelly Harris,
While watching over the thriving infant, Nita's First,
which has been placed under your care, you cannot, of course, be out
so late as nine o’clock at night, j ust the hour when Nita's First
wakes up everybody previous to the appearance of Miss Fal-de-ral-
Lalla Rookh in the much Kate Vaunted Burlesque which success-
fully supplements the entertainments at the Novelty. And so you
were unable to see the production of Featherbrain at the Criterion,
an adaptation of the Tete de Linotte by Mr. James Albery. I wish
you had been present: no one would have appreciated the “go” of
the piece more than yourself, but though played with any amount of
“go” I cannot say that on the whole the piece “went,” as, con-
sidering the prestige of the original, it ought to have done. I saw the
French piece, not in Paris, but played by a very fair company at Nice,
and the Second Act, I am bound to say, was the only one out of the
three that amused Yours Truly; and that was not so much owing
to the situations as to the excellent acting of the men who ascended
the staircase, and who each assumed a different manner when about
to knock at the “young person’s” door. In the Second Act, as it
struck me, there was rather the suggestion of a plot for a piece than
such overpoweringly comic situations as would warrant the experi-
ment of trying the three-act Farce in an English dress.
Mr. Albery’s Featherbrain is not the sort of comedy that ought
to be inscribed in letters of gold, as unfortunately it is on the irrita-
ting sage-green programmes at the Criterion, which look at night
almost as black as I did myself at mine when I found I could hardly
decipher one word without getting it in a very peculiar light and
squinting at it violently. The colour of these programmes is. a
mistake: so is the gold printing. I am sure you, my dear Miss
Harris, won’t like it when you see it, and won’t order a couple of
thousand to try.
The action of Featherbrain is too rapid to be easily intelligible ; the
dialogue seems to have been all cut down to short lines, which the
Actors chuck at one another, on a sort of catch-as-catch-can prin-
ciple, which is all very well when the situation, towards the end of an
Act, may require to be “ worked up to,” but it is a mistake through-
out an entire Act, and throughout a piece from first to last. The
audience, an easy-going one, arriving at the rational hour of nine
for this entertainment, is most anxious to follow, but the pace kills,
and the audience is left at least half-an-Act behind, and finally
The Coney Hatch Family. Extraordinary proceedings. Opening Scene.
relinquishes in despair all attempt at keeping up with the characters,
content to come in where it can, and glad to pick up a bit of plot
from the dialogue, or situation, here and there—when the Actors
may be, as it were, momentarily out of breath. It’s playing too
fast; it’s playing with an audience ; and, if continued, it will be
playing without one.
The energy of the Actors was wonderful, and I do not remember
having seen a.first-night performance so letter-perfect as was that
of Featherbrain. They were all, as it were, tied together somehow,
dancing wildly on tight-rope, and one stumble would have brought
’em all to the ground. It was marvellous —and exciting. An
American twaDg seemed to pervade the entire Company. It may
have been in keeping with the go-a-headiness of the style, but I do
not think that you, with your correct ear for musical effect, would
have wished to import an American twang into the lisping accents
of Nita's First.
You would be the first to admit that the Author has been very
happy in the nomenclature of his characters. Samuel Coney, a sort
of thought-reader, invariably wrong (an idea completely thrown away
in this ca.«e), and his wife, the Featherbrain, quite a pair for Coney
Hatch. The part of Coney is not at all suited to Mr. Mackintosh,
and it is a pity that Mr. WvNDHAMhad not played it himself, but, as
your brother Augustus would say, “ I suppose Windham thinks he
can weather the storm with a Mackintosh.” This Mackintosh,—
Such a Getting Up-stairs, being Specimen of a Scene full of “ Action.”
certainly excellent provision against a rainy day,—is too hard for this
sort of thing. Miss Jansen and Miss Evesson, who plays Eurydice
Mole (what a good name, isn’t it ?), are both Americans, or speak as
if they were, and, in these days of dress-improvers, I think you would
hint that they brought a good deal of unnecessary bustle into the
piece. The whole performance was feverish and jerky, with the
exception of Mr. Blakeley. I should like to see Mr. W. J. Hill
and Mr. Blakeley play together as the Great Twin Brethren; or,
The Double Stout Corsican Brothers.
The familiar domestics in the piece belong to antique farce, and
nre consequently, in this modern piece, quite servants out of place.
They receive their notice at the commencement of the comedy, and so
this is literally true.
The one hit of the evening was made by M. Marius, in the not very
original part of Don Stephano, a Portuguese Nobleman. It is the
sort of bombastic extravagant character which you may remember
to have seen him play in some Opera Bovffe at the Strand, and is the
counterpart of a Spanish Hidalgo represented at this Theatre by Mr.
Owen Dove. M. Marius was very funny in it. Miss Rose Saker
was distinctly good as Mrs. Pettigrew, the domestic tyrant. Perhaps,
now that they won’t be playing it at such high pressure, it may have
become more intelligible, but, on the first night, it did not seem up to
the regular “ ‘ Cri’-with-laughter” standard of this House; and,
strictly entre novs, I don’t expect it will ever attain it,—at least, it
strikes me that that is what you would have said had you seen it in
company with Yours truly, Nibbs.
P.S.—Midnight. Telegram just in from Lyceum Engine Stoker :
—“ First Night of Twelfth Night ivill be of July the Eighth Night
Good Night." Very good night.
A MADRIGAL OF MUD-SALAD.
{See “ The Times.’’)
Listen, Earth, and Air, and Sky,
To a truly bitter cry,
From a street that’s like a stye :
“ A Cry from Covent Garden.”
One foul street with refuse strown,
Greens and garbage, bits of bone,
Fishy and ffeshv offal, thrown
About in Covent Garden.
Dustbins’ foul contents let run,
Frizzling, festering, in the sun,
Giving effluvia off like fun,
In filthy Covent Garden.
Oh, what odours they exhale
To the senses on the gale !
Pah ! what sickening smells assail
The nose in Covent Garden !
There, in London’s central spot,
Rubbish without stint is shot,
Whilst enormous tolls are got
All out of Covent Garden.
Through decomposition’s taint
Neighbours round are tit to faint;
Peril of pestilent complaint
Prevails in Covent Garden.
What a scandal and a shame
Is the street of a noble name !
Can a Noble not reclaim
Unsavoury Covent Garden ?
Mr. Wilson Barrett and his Authors must re-study their mathe-
matics. The eminent Actor who selected the one-Act entertainment
entitled Chatterton. has yet to learn that ‘ the part ’ is not greater
than the whole. Unfortunately for the Public, the Dramatic Star
rule is the contrary of the clear mathematical axiom.
Bun and “ Buster.”—Catch a Dynamiter in possession of a cake
of dynamite, and make him eat it.
LETTERS TO SOME PEOPLE
About Other People's Business.
My Dear Miss Kelly Harris,
While watching over the thriving infant, Nita's First,
which has been placed under your care, you cannot, of course, be out
so late as nine o’clock at night, j ust the hour when Nita's First
wakes up everybody previous to the appearance of Miss Fal-de-ral-
Lalla Rookh in the much Kate Vaunted Burlesque which success-
fully supplements the entertainments at the Novelty. And so you
were unable to see the production of Featherbrain at the Criterion,
an adaptation of the Tete de Linotte by Mr. James Albery. I wish
you had been present: no one would have appreciated the “go” of
the piece more than yourself, but though played with any amount of
“go” I cannot say that on the whole the piece “went,” as, con-
sidering the prestige of the original, it ought to have done. I saw the
French piece, not in Paris, but played by a very fair company at Nice,
and the Second Act, I am bound to say, was the only one out of the
three that amused Yours Truly; and that was not so much owing
to the situations as to the excellent acting of the men who ascended
the staircase, and who each assumed a different manner when about
to knock at the “young person’s” door. In the Second Act, as it
struck me, there was rather the suggestion of a plot for a piece than
such overpoweringly comic situations as would warrant the experi-
ment of trying the three-act Farce in an English dress.
Mr. Albery’s Featherbrain is not the sort of comedy that ought
to be inscribed in letters of gold, as unfortunately it is on the irrita-
ting sage-green programmes at the Criterion, which look at night
almost as black as I did myself at mine when I found I could hardly
decipher one word without getting it in a very peculiar light and
squinting at it violently. The colour of these programmes is. a
mistake: so is the gold printing. I am sure you, my dear Miss
Harris, won’t like it when you see it, and won’t order a couple of
thousand to try.
The action of Featherbrain is too rapid to be easily intelligible ; the
dialogue seems to have been all cut down to short lines, which the
Actors chuck at one another, on a sort of catch-as-catch-can prin-
ciple, which is all very well when the situation, towards the end of an
Act, may require to be “ worked up to,” but it is a mistake through-
out an entire Act, and throughout a piece from first to last. The
audience, an easy-going one, arriving at the rational hour of nine
for this entertainment, is most anxious to follow, but the pace kills,
and the audience is left at least half-an-Act behind, and finally
The Coney Hatch Family. Extraordinary proceedings. Opening Scene.
relinquishes in despair all attempt at keeping up with the characters,
content to come in where it can, and glad to pick up a bit of plot
from the dialogue, or situation, here and there—when the Actors
may be, as it were, momentarily out of breath. It’s playing too
fast; it’s playing with an audience ; and, if continued, it will be
playing without one.
The energy of the Actors was wonderful, and I do not remember
having seen a.first-night performance so letter-perfect as was that
of Featherbrain. They were all, as it were, tied together somehow,
dancing wildly on tight-rope, and one stumble would have brought
’em all to the ground. It was marvellous —and exciting. An
American twaDg seemed to pervade the entire Company. It may
have been in keeping with the go-a-headiness of the style, but I do
not think that you, with your correct ear for musical effect, would
have wished to import an American twang into the lisping accents
of Nita's First.
You would be the first to admit that the Author has been very
happy in the nomenclature of his characters. Samuel Coney, a sort
of thought-reader, invariably wrong (an idea completely thrown away
in this ca.«e), and his wife, the Featherbrain, quite a pair for Coney
Hatch. The part of Coney is not at all suited to Mr. Mackintosh,
and it is a pity that Mr. WvNDHAMhad not played it himself, but, as
your brother Augustus would say, “ I suppose Windham thinks he
can weather the storm with a Mackintosh.” This Mackintosh,—
Such a Getting Up-stairs, being Specimen of a Scene full of “ Action.”
certainly excellent provision against a rainy day,—is too hard for this
sort of thing. Miss Jansen and Miss Evesson, who plays Eurydice
Mole (what a good name, isn’t it ?), are both Americans, or speak as
if they were, and, in these days of dress-improvers, I think you would
hint that they brought a good deal of unnecessary bustle into the
piece. The whole performance was feverish and jerky, with the
exception of Mr. Blakeley. I should like to see Mr. W. J. Hill
and Mr. Blakeley play together as the Great Twin Brethren; or,
The Double Stout Corsican Brothers.
The familiar domestics in the piece belong to antique farce, and
nre consequently, in this modern piece, quite servants out of place.
They receive their notice at the commencement of the comedy, and so
this is literally true.
The one hit of the evening was made by M. Marius, in the not very
original part of Don Stephano, a Portuguese Nobleman. It is the
sort of bombastic extravagant character which you may remember
to have seen him play in some Opera Bovffe at the Strand, and is the
counterpart of a Spanish Hidalgo represented at this Theatre by Mr.
Owen Dove. M. Marius was very funny in it. Miss Rose Saker
was distinctly good as Mrs. Pettigrew, the domestic tyrant. Perhaps,
now that they won’t be playing it at such high pressure, it may have
become more intelligible, but, on the first night, it did not seem up to
the regular “ ‘ Cri’-with-laughter” standard of this House; and,
strictly entre novs, I don’t expect it will ever attain it,—at least, it
strikes me that that is what you would have said had you seen it in
company with Yours truly, Nibbs.
P.S.—Midnight. Telegram just in from Lyceum Engine Stoker :
—“ First Night of Twelfth Night ivill be of July the Eighth Night
Good Night." Very good night.
A MADRIGAL OF MUD-SALAD.
{See “ The Times.’’)
Listen, Earth, and Air, and Sky,
To a truly bitter cry,
From a street that’s like a stye :
“ A Cry from Covent Garden.”
One foul street with refuse strown,
Greens and garbage, bits of bone,
Fishy and ffeshv offal, thrown
About in Covent Garden.
Dustbins’ foul contents let run,
Frizzling, festering, in the sun,
Giving effluvia off like fun,
In filthy Covent Garden.
Oh, what odours they exhale
To the senses on the gale !
Pah ! what sickening smells assail
The nose in Covent Garden !
There, in London’s central spot,
Rubbish without stint is shot,
Whilst enormous tolls are got
All out of Covent Garden.
Through decomposition’s taint
Neighbours round are tit to faint;
Peril of pestilent complaint
Prevails in Covent Garden.
What a scandal and a shame
Is the street of a noble name !
Can a Noble not reclaim
Unsavoury Covent Garden ?
Mr. Wilson Barrett and his Authors must re-study their mathe-
matics. The eminent Actor who selected the one-Act entertainment
entitled Chatterton. has yet to learn that ‘ the part ’ is not greater
than the whole. Unfortunately for the Public, the Dramatic Star
rule is the contrary of the clear mathematical axiom.
Bun and “ Buster.”—Catch a Dynamiter in possession of a cake
of dynamite, and make him eat it.