THE THEATRE
STAGE AND SCREEN
"Victoria Regina." By Laurence Housman. At the Lyric
A FRIEND of mine, who was a gossip-writer, used to receive communications from a member of the Palace staff. "It
may not be generally known," they would run, "that His Majesty's umbrellas have eight spokes instead of the usual ten." For information of this sort the royal housemaid would expect an honorarium of half-a-guinea. Mr. Laurence Housman has reaped a richer reward for a work of somewhat
similar appeal. Victoria Regina has drawn its thousands in Paris, and in New York its tens of thousands. In London it is certain of an immense run. I shall not therefore be taking the bread from anybody's mouth by expressing a regret that the Lord Chamberlain should have removed his ban on its performance.
The Victorians were nothing if not discreet : and we have less authentic knowledge of the life at Court in Victoria's reign than in any other period. Potential Creeveys and Herveys starved for want of material ; and what Greville failed to unearth can hardly have been worth bringing to the light of day. Mr. Housman makes the . best of the actual materials. Sir John Conroy, who figures in the published plays, is mercifully omitted from the present selection of episodes. John Brown looms unnecessarily large, and Disraeli does his stuff with an unction beyond the dreams of a Vivian Grey. But where recorded facts run short, and innuendo is exhausted, Mr. Housman has fallen back on his imagination. Unfortunately it is a very pawky imagination.
Not that Mr. Housman dislikes Victoria or the Prince Consort. I dare say he would like them to have been as he has drawn them. The portrait is intended to be sympathetic : but in the result it is only whimsical. The Queen-Empress becomes a sort of Vicky-the-Pooh. The old lady who made Bismarck sweat with fright is depicted as little short of a half-wit. Little emphasis is laid upon her public services, and none upon the shrewdness that so many of her Ministers acknowledged. To judge by Mr. Housman, one would suppose that her political views were formed entirely by her appetite for Disraelian flattery : not a glimpse is vouchsafed of her handling of Gladstone, whom she alone assessed at the valuation with which posterity agrees.
A more curious means of celebrating the centenary of the Queen's accession could hardly have been devised than the public release of such an interpretation of her reign. Lytton Strachey demonstrated years ago how history could be fair without being dull. But Mr. Housman takes a retrograde step. Where Strachey was suggestive, he is fly : where Strachey was witty, he is arch. His weapons are nods and winks and nudges. What had better be left unsaid, he cannot leave unhinted. Even the vague aspersions upon Albert's paternity are accepted as something like proved historical fact. These are errors not of accuracy but of taste. Nobody looks for faultless veracity upon the stage, or cculd expect that a censorship could enforce it. But the Lord Chamberlain's department derives its authority from the long association between the London stage and its royal patrons : and if it will not intervene to stop a public representation of the life of royalty as a tissue of trivialities and sentiment, it would seem to neglect an essential part of its duty.
Instead of this, the Lord Chamberlain is reported to be " charmed " by the performance : and beyond doubt the public will be charmed as well. Palaces are charming places : and Mr. Housman distils their fullest fascination with an artful hand. In a se'eztion of nine plays out of a grand total of forty-two, it would be unfair to look for any dramatic cohesion. But that is no fault of the author, whose skill is obvious. The piece possesses all the qualities that are known to the agents as theatre, and to the theatre as camp. For the present production there can be nothing but praise. The pieces are well chosen, and several of the more dubious portions of the script have been omitted. Mr. Rex Whistler's 'settings are of the most elaborate and gorgeous perfection. Miss Pamela Stanley seizes her splendid opportunity ; she dignifies and gives unity to a part which switches suddenly from ardent youth to a condition bordering on imbecility. She is well supported by a prodigiously handsome Prince
Previous page
