THE THEATRE.
THE PHOENIX.—OTWAY'S "VENICE PRESERVE," IT was very strange to be moved by the story of people with names such as Belvidere and Aquilina—a story, moreover, in which, after sustaining incredible misfortunes, the heroine rune becomingly mad before our eyes. And yet we were moved. Miss Cathleen Nesbitt moved us, so did Otway.
Jaffier was a young man of good birth but small purse who ran away with his Belvidere and married her against the wishes of her father, the proud Senator Priuli. Madly in love with her and of a sanguine nature. he gives his adored young wife the attendance and state of a senator's daughter. When the play opens, two years after the marriage, Jaffier is deep in debt and the father is unsoftened. Jaffier takes his misfortunes hard, is willing to blame the world rather than accept as natural the consequences of his love-match. Thus, when his friend Pierre, who also has a grievance, unfolds to him the story of a conspiracy to overturn the Senate, he is easily persuaded to lend his arm to the plot.
The best scenes of the play then follow In which the nature of Conspiracy is anatomized. When these episodes are compared with the stilted, if none the less oddly affecting, love-scenes and the absurd machinery of vows and "heavy fathers," the Plot seems extraordinarily lively. If, however, we look at the date at which the play was produced, we shall easily understand the briskness of Otway's perception. The Popish Plot of 1670 was still fresh in the public mind ; Charles the Second and his Parliament were easily read for the Doge and the Venetian Council of Ten. Some commentators have said the play was a Tory document against the Whigs. But surely the Semite come out as badly as the conspirators.
To continue our narrative, however. Jaffier is sworn into the brotherhood of the liberators of the Venetian Republio, whose policy is to burn the city to the water's edge and sheath their swords in the bosoms of its citizens. They doubt this new conspirator whom Pierre has introduced among them without their consent, and Jaffier leaves Belvidere and a dagger with the conspirators as hostages for his faith. Belvidere, is in the extremity of distress, for Jaffier, partly out of respect to his oath and partly because he feels that his action has been rash and may not gain her approval, has kept her entirely in the dark as to his motives in the bargain of which her life is the seal Her distresses are augmented by the advances which the gravest of her custodians, Renault, makes to her. It is the eve of the conspiracy. Belvidere, believes herself deserted and in the power of a monster. Jaffier has sworn not to visit her but hears of her distress and cannot keep away; she upbraids him with his lack of faith in her, and tells him of the treachery of his supposed friends of the conspiracy. For Jaffier the period of disillusionment has already begun to set in ; he has become acquainted with the bloody means which the plotters mean to use to bring about their ends, and the revelation of Renault's treachery towards Belvidere opens his eyes completely. Unable to bear her very natural accusations of falseness and unkindness, he lets out the whole story to her. She is horrified, and paints to him in lively colours the nature of the thing ho has undertaken, and represents to him that all this blood, the blood of innocent women and children, will but run to clear the way for a new tyranny as bad as the last. She persuades him to discover the plot to the Senate. He and his hostage steal away together, and, on promise of pardon to the plotters, reveal
the whole conspiracy to the Senate. But the Senate are false. Having got his information, they indeed grant liberty to himsefi and Belvidere, but deny it to his friend Pierre and to the lees
worthy conspirators. Jaffier is once more torn with doubt and accuses Belvidere, who has persuaded him to what now seems
to him and to his former friend the utmost treachery, of being
his undoing. Pierre disowns him, believing that his betrayal was all along intended. Jaffier, with his usual childlike belief in " two wrongs making a right," in an access of generosity sal' that he will pay his forfeit like a man, and, unless he can beg of the lives of the conspirators, the lives of Belvidere and his infant son shall be forfeit as he had at first intended. (It seems to occur to nobody to ask the opinions of the unfortunate victims.) He parts from Pierre and, half distracted, almost kills Belvidere out of hand. She 18 willing to die, for his estrange- ment has half killed her already, but they resolve that one more effort must be made to save the unfortunate Pierre. Belvidere gees veiled to her father, the Senator who haa disowned her ; be
hears half her story before she reveals her identity. His heart has been touched, and he goes to the Senate realizing that on his persuasive eloquence on behalf of the prisoners depends his daughter's happiness, indeed her life. We have, meanwhile, said nothing of Pierre's motives in entering into the conspiracy. His mistress Aquiline has been stolen from him by anold doting Senator, who showers gold upon her. She in her gross animal way still loves Pierre and cannot see his objection to sharing her with the old man ; however, Antonio has become the means of parting her from her handsome soldier, and so she hates him and treats him with all imaginable contumely while he still dotes upon her. This is the Senator who is to make the speech pleading for the instant execution of the conspirators. Aquiline hears of this. She has whipped him from her doors before when he was importunate ; now she comes with a dagger and makes him swear to reverse his policy. But the Senate refuses to reverse its decision. Jaffier is forgiven by Pierre on the understanding that he will stab him on the scaffold. They die together, Belvidere, runs mad, and so the story ends.
I cannot quite share Mr. Montague Summers's opinion that the play is "one of the greatest tragedies in the English language," though at the Phoenix's performances it had every possible chance. Miss Cathleen Nesbitt was quite admirable as Belvidem, and contrived to make us believe completely in this per- sistently soft-yet-heroic heroine. Her voice is probably the most beautiful at present to be heard on the stage, and she is most graceful in body and intelligent in mind. Miss Edith Evans as a Paul Veronese courtesan was amazingly good. Ruthless, vigorous and animal, Aquiline stood before us in the flesh, a gorgeous and a revolting figure. The pearl-twined, scraped back, fair hair and the magnificent jewel-sewn gold and scarlet dress were one of Mr. Tom Heslewood's masterpieces.
Mr. Ion Swinley and Mr. Bali& Holloway as Pierre and Jaffier respectively were quite excellent. Indeed, the level of acting is, as usual with the Phoenix, much above that usually seen in London theatres. .
Unfortunately, having narrated the story, there is no room for quotation or for an analysis of the elements which go to make up this typical piece of transitional art. Suffice it to say that Otway was surely about equally indebted to Racine, to the Elizabethans and to life, and that the Racine ingredient has net been mixed in with too firm a hand. As for the play's blank verse, the reader will find some specimens of it at the head of a leading article in this issue. The Phoenix's choice of a play was uncanny in its appositeness. Surely Otway listened behind
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