THE THEATRE.
" THE GONDOLIERS " AT THE PRINCES THEATRE ; " DIFF'RENT " AND " SUPPRESSED DESIRES " AT THE EVERYMAN THEATRE.
EVEN if they were not delightful in themselves, the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas would be worthy of the attention of the present generation, which has become acquainted with them in their revival since the war. For they occupy a very important place in the history of the ballad operas, a form which John Gay " inren. et delin."
Contrasting these ballad operas with The Beggar's Opera on the one hand and with modern ballad opera (or musical comedy), musical extravaganza, and revue on the other, the listener is, I think, first of all struck by their extraordinary competence. Composer and author know exactly what they are doing. Take the matter, for instance, of song introduction or of getting on the chorus. The songs in such a production as Now and Then, which I went to see last week, are hung on to the dialogue by means of the most obvious pegs imaginable. One visualizes a large rusty nail which has half broken away the plaster, but Gilbert and Sullivan hung songs and concerted movements on as with a little invisible stud—deftly as a pro- fessional picture-hanger. Another matter for which we shall look out in comparisons of this kind—but this is a question almost as much of audience as of author—is to see where we oan pick out obvious concessions to other people's opinions. In the case of Gilbert and Sullivan, the unconvincing rosy light in which the chorus is almost invariably bathed by both composer and author (cf. the opening momenta of The Gondoliers) one suspects of not having been done completely con amore, and Gilbert seems to view with a doubtful eye the prospect of the married happiness of his heroes and heroines.
But in this whole subject of the relation of the sexes, and the nature of women, the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas seem much further away from us than does The Beggar's Opera. I am not thinking so much of the greater propriety of Gilbert and Sullivan, but rather that Gilbert only seems to know of one archetypal woman, a primitive creature, with the soft- ness, hardness, and occasional cruelty of the feline. She is of course, whatever her rank, always disguised as a perfect lady He must, we feel, have agreed with Pope:— "Nothing as true as what you once let fall, Most women have no character at all."
Gilbert would surely have been for ever incapable of drawing such sharply diversified women as Mrs. Peachum, Polly, and Lucy. His women are always feminine, but rarely human beings. However, the mingled contempt and awe in which he seems to hold the female sex adds a sort of piquancy to many of his situations, and his attitude on this point often proves a good extractor of that sub-acid flavour which, we suspect, so hugely endeared him to his original hearers—hearers whose official attitude to sentiment was so—in short—official.
Gilbert again excels in the bathetic type of joke. He can let down a situation with the best. But still more marked is his crys- talline lucidity of mind. Take, for instance, the really wonderful piece of mental jugglery in the song about the whereabouts or rather the identity of the King of Barataria. " Of this there is no manner of doubt." In a line or two Gilbert gives a wonder- ful conception of the sufficiency to the legal mind of the Inquisitor of the narrow circle of conjecture within which the identity of the King has been enclosed. A few minutes' consideration of the points of individuality raised here might well be calculated to make the hardest head spin, while the exquisite conciseness of the Inquisitor's statement of the problem must be the envy of every journalist.
Another song in which Gilbert's lucidity of mind is very apparent is the same character's description of the King who " To the top of every tree promoted everybody." But of course the whole conception of the imbroglio in The Gondoliers is delightfully happy. It is one of those teeming comic situations from which an extraordinary number of subsidiary jokes spring spontaneously.
Mr. Eugene O'Neill's play at the Everyman Theatre is full of faults. It moves haltingly, here too slowly, there with important points too little emphasized. But with all its defects it is so full of vigour that we are amply willing to forgive the author's falterings in handling his material. In dealing with the psychology of his characters, this hesitancy never for a moment shows itself. His drawing of the woman who in youth finds herself too squeamish to marry the man who is her true lover, and who in later middle age pursues a noxious, dissipated boy, is drawn with sympathy, clearness, and power. The self- revelation of the worthless, completely egotistical boy is bril- liantly contrived. This part was played to perfection by Mr. Leslie Banks, and Miss Jean Cadell was most effective as Emma Crosby. Mr. O'Neill's freshness, detachment, and energy are such as to make his audience most heartily hope that he will give his attention to the minor problems of technique and so let us enjoy the full force of his dramatic powers.
The " Freudian Comedy " by Mr. George Cram Cook and Miss Susan Glaspell is exceedingly funny, and ends in a thoroughly high-spirited farago of good humour and absurdity. Unfortunately, Miss Margaret Carter went near to spoiling the first half of the little play by slow pace and over-emphasis. It was not until the play had got under way of its own that her Henrietta Brewster began to act at all in the way that I fancy the authors intended. The little comedy will amuse all students of psycho-analysis. The two plays make together a
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