THE TIVATRE
THE RETURN VISIT- OF LA • CHAUVE.i-
SOLIRIS
M. NIKITA BALIEFF'S company has lost none of its versatility or of its surprising competence. The new programme at the Strand Theatre ran smoothly and was applauded with indis- criminate enthusiasm. It may be that some of the items are weak and sentimental ; we have grown tired of eighteenth- century graces and artificial blue moonlight ; yet where everything is done with such perfection, hoW can we object to the material of perfection ?
It is a triumph of mannerism. Words and scenery, acting and the very motions of the company are all mannered. But mannerism implies a civilization, and a culture ; it is a kind of play-time in a reach of consciousness which has been laid open to us by the efforts of genius. And if these items are nothings, these nothings are inimitable. Take the synopsis of Lore and Hierarchy :- " A charming young woman is awaiting her swains. One by one, a drummer-boy; a sergeant-major, a lieutenant and' s,colonell- appear. Each one in turn obliges his-inferior to yield him place in accordance with the established discipline of military seniority. Finally a general arrives, reconciles them all, and emerges victorious
in this strange tournament." - - • . _
The wordsgive no sense of the gay satire which the company puts into the action. Au the rules of coquetry are displayed for us by Mme. Platonova in a most light-heartedly savage way. Swift himself could not have written with the cynicism we are given in this small ballet. And is it woman alone who is satirized ? No, indeed. That term, " military seniority," cannot at all express the growth of the foolish imposingness of man as his uniform grows more grand. When we arrive at the genera himself, with his red, happy, stupid. face, his martial strutting, his divinely inane self-satisfaction; we are brought to an almost delirious height of affection and contempt
for humanity. _
And if these " turns " were given by an English company we can imagine how vapid they would seen. " Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre," is as eiripty as the rest, or even emptier. The old song is sung with- appropriate action by a monk and five nuns. Absurd and distorted figures are moved 'along the back of the stage—Marlborough and his army setting out and returning. As much might easily be done at a school concert. Then why can such perfection be wrung from such slight material ?
Partly, no doubt, because the actors are conscious that . they are entertainers. No one steps forward and takes the stage, overshadowing the rest of the company. No one, ' in the gentle English manner, forgets his lines and makes his own incompetence a method of securing false-intimate terms with the audience. At the Co-optimists (they should afford' the nearest English parallel to the Chauve-Souris) we could often notice n kind of deliberate slackness ; an actress would make her entrance as she fastened her sash or pulled up her stockings ; an actor would cut the difficulties of a dance by hardly lifting his feet from the ground. There is no doubt that the audiences enjoyed this impertinence; somehow their carelessness appeared to show that the actors were 'good fellows," with no nervousness and no excessive strain for effect. But it was an immoral and false appeal, and; in contrast, the honest and- clean workmanship of the Chauve- Souris is' a_ continual delight.
. Partly, too, because of the fine, free absurdity of the scenery. We sometimes have distortions in the scenery of English productions, and we feel uneasy about them. The laws of gravitation and good sense seem to have been neglected. In the Chauve-Souris they are openly -defied and we are once again -comfortable. If we have a cow as big as a mountain or a man reclining at his ease head downward, in an almost perpendicular position, there is no need to fear that something has gone wrong. Everything has gone wrong and we are in the land where everything does go wrong. Absurdity is the norm, and all is well.
The technique of the company can he studied best in. their rendering of two American songs they have brought back from New York. We pray that nobody else should sing these songs to us ; yet here they are among the' turns we most enjoyed.
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