" THE LADY OF -THE ROSE " AT DALY'S THEATRE.
CORPETENT judges-tell me 'that -The Lady of- the Rose is above the average of musical comedies. tell myself that it is above the average of entertainments in general. Mr. St. John Ervino has justly remarked that it is like an Ethel M. Dell novel come to life. The great point- about it is that, whatever it was, it really has come to life. Not that the singers have very good voices, or that' the dancers knew-much-about dancing, bet even I knew enough about- trautieal,comedy-not- to expect that. For musical comedy is, not 'trying to give its audience a coherent, aesthetic experienee. :It has,' Me- revue, a technique of its own. It is, moreover, trying, in a very unpretentious way, to fulfil one of the many functions of the narrative arts ; it is trying to transport the auditor to the place of his dreams. Now, the nature of the destination of such a work of art depends upon the audience to whom it is addressed. Musical comedy is addressed to the great midriff of the British people ; it is par excellence the bourgeois art form. You will tell me that it is largely patronized by the aristocracy. So it is, when they are home- sick. We are all at times home-sick for middle-class art. There are moments, especially after dinner, when we don't want to be bothered by having to think things out, when it is de- finitely helpful as well as charming to be told that all dairy- maids are exquisitely feminine, exquisitely turned out, and do their work in satin slippers and a seraphic smile. For the moment it matters not that, if we have been brought up on a home farm, we have probably, in youth, been chivvied by an elderly lady with red arms and an emphatic tongue. If you think that an exquisite Fragonard shepherdess would do as well for this carpet-slippered mood you are quite wrong. The chorus young ladies are just right. We don't want beautiful effects in line and colour ; they give a sharp pleasure ; they would disturb us. All we ask of our dairymaids is that they should be " dainty."
I thoroughly enjoyed my evening in this middle-class paradise. I liked the colossally saturnine Colonel Belovar of Mr. Harry Welchman ; I liked the slow, considered pertness of Miss Winnie Collins ; I liked the sweet and intensely refined sentimentality of Mies Phyllis Dare ; but best of all, and on a different plane, I liked Mr. Huntley Wright, the comedian, who surpassed himself in a restrained and delicate presentation of that best of comic characters—I mean the little but courageous, enterprising gentleman who is dogged by misfortune, and who combines the noblest impulses with an almost disastrously susceptible heart. Not only was this part well acted, but it was even well written. Some of the jokes, which Mr. Huntley Wright framed and glazed and generally made the most of with an extraordinarily sure and restrained hand, were really very funny. Far be it from me to remember any of them ; to do so would be an insult to the whole spirit of musical comedy, which lulls the audience beyond such vexations as efforts of memory. All that remains with me is a hazy recollection of one rhyme. The man who flirts with duchesses has to remember that the footman who stands behind his chair has a heart that feels 58 much as his. How true, how trite, how pleasantly expressed On another page is a letter from Lord Howard de Walden. Some readers of the Spectator will remember that a few months ago Mr. Gordon Craig, Mrs. Lovat Fraser, Mr. Nigel Playfair and I urged the Victoria and Albert Museum to arrange a loan collection of theatrical art. There was no result. But it seems that our bread was cast upon the waters. The Museum has now offered to house the magnificent Amsterdam exhibition for aixweeks if enough money can be collected to pay for packing and transit. The exhibition is probably the finest collection illus- trating the art of theatrical decor that has ever been collected. It will be shown to the public free. Its exhibition—if it is found possible to bring A over—will certainly greatly help forward the decorative theatrical arts in this country.
TARN.
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