Mr. Tree’s Monday Nights

Fortnightly Review, 1 December 1890, pages 925-931, 3,498 words

Nearly all human action is prompted and governed by two motives, a higher and a lower, and two motives were probably at work in Mr. Tree and united in guiding his decision to set aside one night in the week for the production of pieces which, although calculated to delight and charm the few, are for this very reason ill suited to the grosser tastes of the vast audiences that assemble night after night to witness the representation of a popular play. The higher motive was the laudable ambition to own the first theatre in London, and for some months past it has been diligently pressed upon Mr. Tree that he can only do this by producing plays that claim the sympathies of literary London. “What does it matter what I produce so long as I make money?” An excellent argument, no doubt, but hardly, if at all, applicable to Mr. Tree, who will make money by being a great artist or not at all. So, either these reasons or some circumstances difficult to divine have convinced Mr. Tree that, money or no money, his fate is to remain an artist, and it is to his credit that he now seems inclined to offer no very serious resistance to what manifestly the gods have willed.

An article entitled ‘Our Dramatists,” published in this Review, was too bitterly written, and provoked not controversy but anger. But it prepared the way for a judicious article by Mr. Oswald Crawfurd. Mr. Crawfurd came with a new idea, although an erroneous one; but though erroneous, as the facts furnished in reply by Mr. Tree proved, the idea seemed to suit these democratic days, when the national belief is “that, provided you give him a chance, one man is as good as another;” and so it happened that all kinds and conditions of folk rushed in to bludgeon the actor-manager. The destruction of headship is the genius of our day, and the suggestion that it was an actor-manager, M. Antoine, who had effected in France, in his Théâtre Libre, the very theatrical reformation which we are striving after here, proved of little use in the argument.

But out of error good cometh, and Mr. Crawfurd’s error drew Mr. Tree into controversy. Nothing was proven; each went his different way convinced more firmly than before of the truth of his opinion, and yet a change had been effected. For the price of knowing the truth is its realisation, and it had become incumbent on Mr. Tree to do something for literature. He took counsel with himself, and his advisers took counsel with him, and so, probably, it came to be decided that the best way to reconcile art with finance was by setting aside one night in the week for the production of literary plays.

I have attributed to The Fortnightly the honour of having been the immediate cause of these Monday nights, but it would be unfair to withhold mention of Mr. William Archer, who is the real and original cause. He was labouring for modern dramatic literature ten years ago, then without a single coadjutor; others have followed his lead, and so it is now possible for a London theatre to make public recognition of literature. And not the plausive recognition of after-dinner oratory, but a real recognition of literature on the boards of the Haymarket has been accomplished, and prominence has been given to literature no less by the inherent merits of Beau Austin than by the literary honourability of the names attached to it. Better names could hardly have been chosen to set a hall-mark on these Mondays. The names of Mr. Henley and Mr. Stevenson are pure, and unsoiled by any literary kitchen-work.

Now let us consider their play. The first act seems to me to be the most conventional and the least skilfully arranged. In the first act we meet with hesitations and marked inability to speak with decision and ease the language of the stage. In the remaining acts the authors stammer not for one single instant, scene after scene is unwound softly and sweetly without a tangle. But in the first act the authors stutter and stammer, and the presentation of the story is hardly strict enough. The act begins with a pointless conversation between Dorothy Musgrave and her mother. They talk about indifferent things, and some oblique references are made to Beau Austin. A scene follows with the maidservant who is wearing a necklace that Beau Austin has given her. Dorothy takes the necklace from her and tears it to pieces. The intention was not apparent, and, although recognising some grace of treatment, I did not feel sure that Beau Austin had not been making love to the maid as well as to the mistress. It, therefore, seemed probable that the play would proceed into disaster, for if authors stammer in the first act, they usually become hopelessly inarticulate when they reach the dread constructive difficulties of the third. Moreover, in the first act Dorothy seemed to flower into a perfect melodramatic maiden; she spoke of her shame and she wrung her hands. Dorothy tells her lover, honest John Fenwick, that she cannot be his wife, and confesses this so ingenuously that he has no difficulty in guessing that the seducer is Beau Austin. Feeling the utter hopelessness of his suit and his love being more than selfish gratification, he promises Dorothy that he will attack Beau Austin neither with word nor blow.

A very poor and ill-constructed first act, but a first act matters little so long as it puts the audience in possession of the facts of the story, and the authors just managed to do this.

But the curtain of the second act went up on a pleasing scene — Austin at his toilette-table engaged in conversation with his valet — the admiring witness of many follies and conquests. The beau is on the wane, and there is more than one touch of autumn in the talk. Dorothy's cubbish brother comes to see the world-renowned beau. The scene is admirably conducted and is pregnant with sensation of change of custom, time, youth and age. The young man enters in all the gaud of his new regimentals — and perfectly are their brightness and his crude speech placed into the act — a dramatic contrast, nothing: more, one of those effects which Meilhac delights in. He leaves and John Fenwick gains admission and in an excellent scene the subtle effeminacy of one character and the blunt manliness of the other are exhibited. The beau is persuaded that it is his duty to marry Dorothy. Critics have unanimously pointed to the conversion of the beau as being a radical fault in the play. There is a fault here, but not a radical one; indeed, the blemish is the slightest and can be removed in a few minutes — in ten minutes. That an old beau should » dream of the ease of married life is more than natural — it is inevitable. That the old beau should confide his aspirations to his faithful | servant is what would most assuredly happen. But Mr. Henley and Mr. Stevenson forgot to write these ten necessary lines. There is the hat peg, there is the hat, but somehow the hat did not get hung up; the critics noticed that the hat lay on the ground, but did not see that the peg was there on which it should be hung. The sin is clearly one of omission, and yet the critics pointed to it as if it were an inherent and irremediable defect.

The third act seems to me to be perfect. It contains four scenes of exquisite rarity and charm, and all are unfolded with precision and grace. The young soldier-brother insists on thrusting his stupidity and his ignorance of life vehemently before his aunt and sister — he has learned the truth from the maid. The beau enters, and is so rudely received that it requires all his tact to avoid a loud dispute, and all John Fenwick’s presence of mind and strength of will to induce the stupid brother to allow the visit of the beau who wishes now to propose to Dorothy.

The capital scene of the play is, of course, the scene of the proposal, and in it the studied elegance of the period is presented in contrast with a deeply human drama — the seducer coming to the proud girl whom he has neglected almost disdainfully, and humbly and in penitence begging her hand in marriage. To fail in this scene was to fail wholly, but the authors succeeded completely, every sentence is a triumph and a miracle. Each reveals the soul — in the man the soul is straitened in a habit of elegance and convention; in the woman the soul breaks through a passionate vesture of pride naturally and freely. Dorothy refuses to marry her seducer, and the critics tear their hair and ask why. They have always seen the seduced girl imploring marriage on the stage, and have not sufficient strength of mind to turn from the stage to life for verification of the truth or the untruth of the story. They cannot imagine a girl proud enough to turn from a man who had wronged and insultingly abandoned her. But it seems to me that the girl who is proud and noble enough to speak as Dorothy Musgrave speaks, exists among women; it seems to me that I hold in my own heart an intimate and unconquerable sense of her existence; it seems to me, too, that we have all seen and known the woman who would speak as Dorothy Musgrave speaks when she spurns the tardy offer which her lover extends to her; above all, when she learns from his speech that John Fenwick went to him and begged it from him. Were Dorothy about to become a mother she would not be justified in refusing, but her words, filled with exquisite self-revelation, tell us that she fears no such thing. She could not then have been Dorothy Musgrave if she had accepted Beau Austin in the third act, and I regret that our critics have so poor an opinion of womankind. The beau retires and the stupid brother enters. He declines to believe Dorothy when she tells him that she has refused Beau Austin; that she should have done so appears as incredible to him as it did to the critics, and he leaves her threatening to publicly insult Beau Austin, and so force him to accept a duel.

A last act is a mere solution, good in proportion as, without jolt or jar, the problem propounded in the penultimate act is solved. Viewing the merits and demerits of a last act from this side, I have to say that I am not acquainted with any comedy whose dénouement rises so inevitably and with such engaging simplicity out of the circumstances as the last act of Beau Austin. Young Musgrave does not fail to execute his threat, and he strikes the illustrious beau who, at that moment, is speaking to the Regent. No insult could be grosser or more public, and it requires ali the consummate tact of the society exquisite to extricate himself and Dorothy Musgrave from the scandal into which the brother’s folly has plunged them. He collects himself with effort; he explains to the Regent how he is the rejected suitor of Miss Dorothy Musgrave, how he tried to win her, and how failing, he was injudicious enough to intrigue with the servant so that he might be able to communicate with her by letter. The blow he has received is deserved, he must accept it. The speech is the quintessence of the beau soul; it is all that he is, all that Society has made him. Dorothy is touched to the heart, and rushes to him; he reminds her that they are in public, and then introduces the future Mrs. Austin to the Regent. Remember the confessions, reconciliations, and repentances that have to be gone through before The School for Scandal can be brought to a close, and think, if you can, of any comedy in which the dénouement rises so logically out of the circumstances — is so implicit in the central character. Yet the critics quarrelled with this exquisite conclusion.

The intention of the authors was one of grace. They wished to represent grace, and so it was that they chose the close of the eighteenth century, 1820 or thereabouts. It was with this view that they selected a beau for the principal character; it was with this view that they decided that their beau should verge towards decadence. The authors were haunted with remembrances of the eighteenth century, they were tremulous with love of the artificiality of its life, its adorable puerilities, its fascinating affectations. That this was the intention of the authors is apparent in every line of the play, and the business of criticism is to determine if the authors succeeded in representing the grace of the eighteenth century. To reprove Watteau because his representation of Court life contains none of those qualities which we admire in Hals, is surely the high-water mark of critical stupidity. Yet hardly any more subtle discrimination obtained among the critics that assembled to witness the first performance of Beau Austin. On every side I heard “Yes, it is interesting; but it is not a play.” Then a play is as definite a thing as a beefsteak pudding? If it does not contain certain ingredients compounded after an authorised receipt it is not a play. Are we to understand once for all that these ingredients are a parson, a Bible, and situations borrowed from the works of Messrs. Sardou and Scribe? It was urged that there was no development of character in the beau. But the authors did not elect to develop character: their intention was to present a beau verging on fifty, in the time of the Regency, in the daily habit of his life. The intention was distinctly not to develop but to present with all possible grace a character that Society had created, had fashioned, had definitely made her own. The play was not more than a drawing by Watteau; it could not be more, this being the authors’ aim; and if the critics had decided that the authors had not reached the goal they had set themselves to reach, I should have had nothing to say. In such circumstances time alone could decide who was right. But their writing having been clearly based on a misapprehension of the play, and, having regard for the importance of these “Monday nights,” which Mr. Tree intends to continue through the season, it becomes necessary to ask the critics to wake up, to rub their eyes, and on the next occasion to judge the work submitted to them from the point of view that the author elects. If they do not do this Mr. Tree will certainly do well to withhold all novelties, and furnish only the ordinary stereotyped commonplace.

In the well-written but somewhat old-fashioned article that appeared in the Telegraph, the writer introduces his subject by some long prefatory remarks concerning the problematic value of the play were all the fashion plates of the period to be found to be suddenly missing from the British Museum and elsewhere. The writer's exact meaning, I confess, escapes me. Does he mean that all attempt to re-construct a past time is hopeless? He seems — at least so far as I can gather from the general drift of the article — to have endeavoured to express some confused notions regarding the possibility that the authors, in composing their play, relied more on the effect of the costumes to be worn by the actors rather than the words which they put into the mouths of the characters; and yet, again, this does not seem to have been his meaning, for he admits that the play is exquisitely written. Then he runs foul of the motive of the play, declaring that the seduction of a young girl by a gallant is characteristic only of 1820, and presumably of the centuries that preceded the eighteenth century. But it would be vain to attempt to decipher such very esoteric criticism. Suffice it to say that, although the experience and knowledge of a veteran playgoer is manifested throughout the article, I cannot help feeling that perhaps after all a little less experience and a little more perception would have been more useful. The Pall Mall Gazette suggested that if Beau Austin was intended to be a comedy, it should have been more humorous; if, on the contrary, it was intended to be a drama, it should have been more dramatic. The St. James’s Gazette regretted that there was no underplot. This was the cruellest cut of all, the first intention of the dramatic reformation being to do away with the barbarism of a sub-plot.

I refer to these journals because I wish to show how the critics went to the theatre — not to decide how near the authors had approached to, or fallen short of, their ideal, but to judge the play according to the formulae of MM. Scribe and Sardou. And the hesitations and the subterfuges! It was clear that hardly a writer on the press had sufficient confidence in himself to think definitely and express his thoughts clearly. The critics hung about the lobbies consulting each other, trying to arrive at some opinion that would hold water concerning the play. It was not until Mr. Archer’s article appeared that I came upon a decisive word. He of course proclaimed the comedy to be what it certainly is — the most beautiful comedy of this last decade, the only very modern piece which is in the least likely to become a classic. His verdict has fortunately been fully borne out by the general public.

Mr. Tree composed the part of the beau in look and gesture with consummate skill and psychological insight. His art is wholly impersonal. He takes himself for a sheet of white paper and writes upon it what he pleases. I am aware that this criticism may not prove wholly pleasing to the actor to whom it is addressed, who possibly longs for what he does not possess, du tempérament. Mr. Tree realizes in his own person what others would fain realize on paper, an absolutely impersonal art in which all that is peculiar to him disappears, and his impersonations move and speak exactly as such characters should do in life. Mr. Terry played the part of John Fenwick with homely naturalness and conviction, understanding the character clearly and on broad lines. Mr. Maurice struck exactly the right note in his scene with the beau in the second act, realizing with great incisiveness the stupidity and the folly of the young man who, incapable of understanding the delicacy of his mother’s and sister’s position, is willing for the sake of his own honour to compromise them irreparably. This character is admirably written and was admirably played. Mr. Brookfield is an actor whom I always admire, for his art, like Mr. Tree’s, is impersonal; but it seemed to me that he made the valet too much like a stableman. Miss Rose Léclerecq was, as she always is, charming.

And now, one word about the old question of the actor-manager, to conclude this article. No one admires Mr. Tree more than I do — to no one does his genius give more pleasure; but, for all that, I do not think it is desirable that we should see Mr. Tree in the principal part of every new, Monday-night play; in the interests of art and in his own interest he must sometimes content himself with subordinate parts. One of the charms of the Français is the pleasure of seeing great actors in subordinate parts, the subordinate part being as valuable to the actor as the short story is to the novelist.

Mr. Tree has in his possession a very beautiful play—La Mort du Duc D’Enghien. The beauty of this play is a matter of common knowledge, and though the part of the Duke may not suit Mr. Tree, it is to be hoped that this will not prove an impassable barrier to its production. Mr. Tree, if he would make these Monday nights red-letter nights in the life of artistic London, must study the talents of the individual members of his company with the same care as he studies his own genius; he must provide chances for the greatest among them, and, above all, he must not linger over successful pieces. The object of the Monday nights is to produce a dramatic current, and if ten or a dozen new plays are not produced in the course of the year the experiment will not be decisive.

 X.