THEATRE REVIEWS

40. The Black Domino (1893)

The Black Domino
by Robert Buchanan and George R. Sims.
London: Adelphi Theatre. 1 April to 27 May, 1893.

[W. L. Abingdon as Captain Greville, Arthur Williams as Joshua Honeybun and Charles Glenney as Lord Dashwood from The Black Domino - The Arthur Williams Collection, Templeman Library, University of Kent. The collection also contains two more photos of Arthur Williams in the role of Honeybun.]

Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (2 April, 1893 - Issue 2628)

LAST NIGHT’S THEATRICALS
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ADELPHI.

     In the presence of a large and enthusiastic house, Messrs. G. R. Sims and R. Buchanan’s new drama, A Black Domino, was produced last night. The play is distinctly of the type made familiar to Adelphi patrons by these authors dealing with present-day life, and made as picturesque as possible by elaborate scenes. The literary merit of the work, however, is not so obvious as the desire to present elaborate stage pictures. It had, however, a hearty reception, and will be a strong holiday attraction. The story opens with a charming rural scene, a village church where Lord Dashwood, the master of the local hunt, is about to be married to Mildred Vavasour, after sowing very wild oats and casting off a notorious and worthless woman, who is the runaway daughter of an old Frenchman, the village organist. Coming back to her father’s home this woman hears the news of the marriage, and prompted by a disappointed lover of Mildred’s Captain Greville, is about to expose the past to the bride, when the old organist breaks in upon the scene, and compels her to silence. This is the keynote of the story, which proceeds with a conspiracy by Greville, a rascally money-lender named Honeybun, amusingly played by Mr. Arthur Williams, and “Belle Hamilton,” the old love, to ruin and disgrace Dashwood. Belle gets him into her toils, once more, ruins him by her extravagance, and he is even egged on to forge the name of his father to a bill. Mildred at last learns the truth, and as “the black domino” of a ball at Covent Garden, sees the depth of his shame. This scene is the great scene of the piece, a most remarkable and brilliant illusion by Mr. Bruce Smith, which drew the heartiest recognition from Sir Augustus Harris, who sat, an amused spectator, in the stalls. Another fine set is Covent-garden market at early dawn. But possibly the finest, from an artistic standpoint, was a lovely view of the terrace of the “Star and Garter” at Richmond, by night. The repentance of Dashwood begins at the ball, and his love for his deceived wife is aroused by the news that Greville has carried her off to his chambers in a fainting condition. From this danger, however, she is released by Belle, who also assumed the repentant role when she finds herself the tool of Greville. Finally Dashwood is forgiven, and a tragic ending is given to the piece by the suicide of Belle Hamilton. It must be admitted that the story is more dramatic than probable, and that the piece has not the solidity of previous dramas, but popular sympathy follows it. The crucial situation comes with the discovery of Dashwood’s forgery and the unexpected declaration from his father that he, the Earl of Arlington, wrote the signature. The drama is rather overweighted with superfluous characters, but there is a comic interest agreeably sustained by Mr. A. Williams, Mr. Welton Dale, and Miss Clara Jecks, the latter as a good-hearted music-hall artiste. Mr. Glenny makes the vacillating Dashwood as earnest as possible, and Miss Evelyn Millard is a sympathetic Mildred. To Mr. Abingdon is, of course, assigned the scheming Greville. The Belle Hamilton has an imposing representative in Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who was cold and ruthless in her sin, and touching in her repentance, brought about by the sorrows of her old father. Mr. W. Dennis, as the old Earl; Mr. G. Cockburn as the old organist; Mr. John Le Hay, as an Irishman on tour; Mr. T. B. Thalberg, as a good-natured young doctor, and Miss Bessie Hatton, as a virtuous daughter of the organist, each have parts of more or less importance. At the end there were enthusiastic calls for the authors, who appeared; for the stage manager; and for Messrs. Gatti; indeed, there were not wanting the usual recognitions of earnest endeavour.

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The Times (3 April, 1893 - p.2)

ADELPHI THEATRE.

     This is the period of new departures on the stage, and the cherished formulas of Adelphi drama enjoy no immunity from the sacrilegious hand of the innovator. Most of the new departures resolve themselves into so many fausses sorties, the dramatist or the manager attempting an innovation, but rejecting it on finding that it fails to enlist the support of the public. Such was the recent diversion made at the Adelphi in the direction of the historic drama. In The Black Domino, which was produced on Saturday night, Messrs. Sims and Buchanan revert to the dramatic methods of the Buckstone period, and, judging from the frenzied applause bestowed upon their efforts by the public, to whom they more especially appeal, their boldness has met with its reward. The immaculate hero, who is the soul of honour, the champion of the bon motif, and who remains true to his matrimonial ideal through good and evil report, has not had a remarkably long career on the boards. Having Mr. Sims and Mr. Henry Pettitt as his sponsors he dates back ten or 12 years at the most. But, during his reign, the supremacy of this somewhat oppressive type of goodness has been undisputed. At each successive appearance he has been, if possible, more immaculate than before. His personality has been idealized in the same ratio as the villainy of his detractors and enemies in the play has been made more pronounced. But there are dangers besetting the career of this more than human character as grave as those encountered by Aristides the Just, and it is doubtless to a perception of these by Messrs. Sims and Buchanan that we owe the radical change of treatment adopted in The Black Domino, where the hero’s weaknesses of character are brought down almost to the level of criminality. After all the truest dramatic effects are evolved not from the greatness, but from the littleness of human nature. Old Adelphi playgoers remember with something like affection Buckstone’s Green Bushes, which was one of the great successes of Madame Celeste. Connor O’Kennedy was by no means the ideal hero of these later times. But his sins and the suffering they entailed served only to endear him to the public, whose eyes were wet with tears for the sorrows of his devoted and betrayed wife and her unwitting rival Miami. Exiled from home, the Irish patriot contracted new bonds in the far off valley of the Mississippi, and his expiation came when the two women he had wronged met face to face. Connor O’Kennedy’s fault lay in his allowing himself to drift. In The Black Domino, Lord Dashwood does more than this. He not only neglects to be off with the old love before he is on with the new; he weakly continues with both, forges his father’s name in order to comply with the demands of his mistress for money, and would in the end hopelessly fall between his two stools if by a somewhat daring coup de théâtre the authors did not suddenly cause the siren to reform and die the death of the conventional adventuress by means of a dose of poison on no less familiar a spot than the terrace of the Star and Garter at Richmond. But the saving clause in Lord Dashwood’s character is that at bottom he has no vicious intent; his heart is always in the right place, and when at last the cloud is lifted from his life and from that of his bride, the innocent victim of her husband’s irresolution, and of the wiles of his best friend, the demands of poetic justice are satisfied.
     In the working out of this theme Messrs. Sims and Buchanan have not availed themselves as Buckstone did of the half light and glamour of romance. They have placed their subject, so to speak, in the full glare of noonday by bringing their story so much down to date as not only to introduce their characters to the terrace of the Star and Garter at Richmond, but to the giddy whirl of one of Sir Augustus Harris’s fancy dress balls at Covent Garden. Doubtless this is wise since the rage seems to be for actuality real or apparent, though it has the effect of throwing the hero’s weaknesses into sharp relief and giving them a somewhat disagreeably sordid character. There are two favourite routes by which the authors of Adelphi melodrama attain a happy ending. If the hero and heroine are betrothed to begin with they are parted for a time by the machinations of their enemies, and the curtain falls to the sound of wedding bells. The alternative course is that they should be married to begin with, and that after the inevitable period of separation and tribulation they should be happily reunited. In The Black Domino a charming via media has been found. The first act is devoted to the wedding, which takes place in a moss-grown country church, attended by a gay party of red-coated huntsmen and by a throng of picturesque rustics. This is one of the most pleasing scenes in a play which is remarkable for the excellence of its spectacle. The wedding, too, is ingeniously utilized as a point of departure for the various lines of dramatic interest. To the ceremony comes Belle Hamilton, the revengeful mistress, bent upon insulting the bride; and here, also, is to be seen her aged father, a French musician, Pierre Berton, who, learning her true character for the first time, formally disowns her in order to lean upon the love of his younger daughter, Rose, who, with himself, has been the grateful recipient of the bride’s bounties. Thanks to her father’s interposition, Belle is restrained from strong measures, but her revenge only takes the subtler form of drawing away the bridegroom from his allegiance, in which task she is assisted by Lord Dashwood’s best friend, Captain Greville—the sinister “Captain” of convention. In the second act, which opens in Lord Dashwood’s house in town, the evil influences foreshadowed are in full swing. The young wife is being neglected, and Lord Dashwood is pretty deeply involved with Belle Hamilton, much against the dictates of his better nature. For purposes of his own, Captain Greville whispers the truth to Lady Dashwood, and informs her that that night her husband has an appointment with his mistress at the fancy dress ball at Covent Garden. As it happens, Lord Dashwood has only made this appointment with a view to breaking with his mistress for good, and the oddity of his plan to this end is to be explained, of course, by the dramatist’s necessities. By an easy transition the spectator is next conducted to the interior of Covent Garden Theatre, where a realistic representation of a fancy dress ball is given. In order to learn the truth, Lady Dashwood comes to the ball in the disguise which gives the play its title. The sight of her husband along with her worthless rival is too much for her nerves; she faints and is promptly carried off to his chambers by Captain Greville, whose object is to compromise her hopelessly. After the ball the roysterers make their way through Covent Garden Market, which, with its bustling personnel, forms the next stage in the story. Here, again, dramatic as well as spectacular ends are subserved, inasmuch as we make acquaintance with the honest Rose Berton, as a flower girl, who tells her disreputable sister, Belle Hamilton, of the benefits conferred upon their family by Lady Dashwood, and thus paves the way for the siren’s reformation, which takes effect in a subsequent scene. Belle Hamilton, having learnt that Lady Dashwood has been carried in an unconscious state to Captain Greville’s rooms, resolves to rescue her from this villain’s clutches, such benevolent impulses being keenly relished as a rule by pit and gallery, who appear to have the profoundest faith in the goodness of human nature. By this time Lord Dashwood, too, knows of his wife’s presence in Captain Greville’s rooms, but Belle Hamilton gets there before him, and, by a trick of substitution, which Mr. Sims originally employed with much effect in The Lights of London, the one woman takes the place of the other, Lady Dashwood escaping in her rival’s domino at the moment when her husband furiously invades the premises in search of her. Lord Dashwood does find a woman in his friend’s rooms, but to his surprise, no less than to the Captain’s, when her disguise is removed, it proves to be Belle Hamilton.
     The dénouement of the play is now in sight. In the fourth and fifth acts Lord Dashwood’s monetary and conjugal difficulties are smoothed over. Something like a cordial modus vivendi is even established between Lady Dashwood and the repentant courtesan, and the latter completes her self-sacrifice, or, as M. Alexandre Dumas would say, her redemption, by swallowing a dose of poison, as already stated, at one of her fast dinner parties. The acting is, for the most part, intrusted to a company well versed in the rendering of this class of play. Mr. Charles Glenney sustains with his customary vigour the part of Lord Dashwood, whom he saves from being as despicable as he might, in other hands, appear to be, while the villany of Captain Greville loses nothing in the practised hands of Mr. W. L. Abingdon. As in the more recent of Messrs. Sims and Buchanan’s plays, the leading female characters devolve upon Miss Evelyn Millard and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the latter of whom contrives to establish some points of resemblance between Belle Hamilton and the consumptive heroine of La Dame aux Camélias. As the virtuous flower-girl Miss Bessie Hatton makes the most of her few opportunities. In all, nearly 30 characters figure in the cast. Considering the generally sombre characters of the play there is happily a somewhat larger allowance than usual of comic relief. Miss Clara Jecks, as a music-hall artist, carries on in her usual high-spirited manner with an amiable young aristocrat in the person of Mr. Welton Dale, while Mr. Arthur Williams makes fun as a comic solicitor, who attends the Covent Garden ball in the character of Cupid. Villagers, huntsmen, flower-girls, costers, and masqueraders fill the stage at intervals and give body to a play which we rank as one of the most ornate and picturesque of the Sims-Buchanan series.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (3 April, 1893 - Issue 8746)

“THE BLACK DOMINO” AT THE ADELPHI.

     THE “Black Domino” is, as far as can be decided by the enthusiasm of a first-night audience, a success. It was received with rapture by a crowded house. There were people in that audience who laughed at the piece’s sallies of humour; there were people in that audience who wept unquestionable tears at the piece’s pathos. If the success be unquestioned, then arises the question, Was the success deserved? That question may be met in two ways. It may be met by a comparison of the play with the average dramatic work of the day. It may be met by consideration of the aim of the piece, and of how far it succeeds in accomplishing that aim. Tested by either standard “The Black Domino” might safely be pronounced a masterpiece. A hurried survey of the drama of the day in London will show the student nothing that is very much better conceived, nothing that is very much better written, nothing that is much truer to life, more original in characterization, or more fertile in incident. What marvel, therefore, if, in the dearth of fame, “The Black Domino” should be saluted with all the honours! But there is the other test that we have suggested, and “The Black Domino” meets that test defiantly. If to be excellently fashioned for a certain purpose, if to be dexterously adapted to appeal to a certain level of taste, if to gain the major quantity of applause with the minor quantity of exertion be the qualifications for a masterpiece, then undoubtedly “The Black Domino” is a masterpiece. Why should its authors have been at any greater pains than was absolutely necessary to reap the ready laurel? Given a public that only asks for the familiar figures, for the familiar situations, for the familiar sentiments, and for the familiar jokes, what better thing can you do, if you are at once philanthropists, men of business, and men of the world, than to glut them with the familiar figures, the familiar situations, the familiar sentiments, and the familiar humour? If the elements that make for success in “The Black Domino” are as old as the everlasting hills, if its puppets are all made in the moulds of a venerable conventionality, if the events are the familiar events of aeons of melodrama, what does it matter? The more familiar the material the better those for whom it is intended will be pleased, and the less reason why two men of ability should bother themselves to make any departure from the old methods. But the conditions which make the success of a play like “The Black Domino” possible make the observer understand why a critic like Barbey d’Aurevilly, who hated the stage with all his heart, could maintain that the drama was the lowest form of art, the lowest form of literary expression. The sense aches to think of the admiration that was given to “The Black Domino” on Saturday night, and the kind of work that had to be done to win that admiration. Criticism, of course, retires in a graceful despair before it. It has nothing to do with criticism; it does not appeal to criticism. Nothing is changed; there is only one melodrama the more. And what is true of the play is true also of the acting.  There is nothing whatever to be said about it of any serious kind. It was as good on the part of a large company as the conditions of the piece permitted. Nobody, either man or woman, was conspicuous for merits or for defects. It was an honest all-round interpretation of a melodrama which repeated, with audacity but with wisdom, all the old devices of what has come to be known as Adelphi melodrama. It was Adelphi melodrama from the Pink Wedding, with which the piece begins, to the moment when the beautiful Clarice—the evil-hearted Clarice—takes poison and dies on the terrace of the Star and Garter at Richmond, with a callous disregard for the feelings of the proprietor of that hostelry which puts the crown on her career of sin. It was, in its way, a sermon, with this for its text: “There’s nothing new, there’s nothing true, and it doesn’t signify.”

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The Daily News (3 April, 1893 - Issue 14665)

THE THEATRES.
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REOPENING OF THE ADELPHI.

     The curious process of moral deterioration which has been observed of late in our heroes of romantic drama must be assumed to have reached its culminating point in Messrs. Sims and Buchanan’s new play at the Adelphi. Mr. Jones’s Duke of Guisebury corrupted a Quaker girl; the Reverend Mr. Llewelyn in “Judah” deliberately swore to the truth of what he knew to be falsety, and audiences at the Opera Comique are just now brought face to face with a hero who expects them to overlook the little weakness that induced him to steal his employer’s valuable securities; but all these are really respectable persons in comparison with Lord Dashwood, the hero and central figure of “The Black Domino.” This heir to the title and estates of the venerable Earl of Arlington decoys from her rustic home an organist’s eldest daughter, and when he is tired of her goes down to marry a rich lady in the very church in which the organist officiates. As a married man Lord Dashwood’s conduct is even less exemplary. He neglects his wife, frequents the society of disorderly companions, and foolishly permits himself to be influenced by evil counsellors, even to the extent of adopting the suggestion that he shall forge his noble father’s endorsement on a bill of exchange. The fact that he appoints his late mistress Clarice Berton, alias “Belle Hamilton,” to meet him at a fancy dress ball at Covent Garden is excused on the ground that this is to be their farewell meeting, but the circumstances are sufficiently suspicious to induce Lady Dashwood, at the instigation of her husband’s false and designing friend, Captain Greville, to attend the ball in a “black domino.” When this has resulted in “a scene” Lord Dashwood, as on other occasions, meanly appeals to his late mistress to assist him. Having distressed and ruined the poor organist, together with his affectionate younger daughter Rose, brought a perilous scandal on Lady Dashwood which induces her to live apart, and very narrowly escaped prosecution for forgery, Lord Dashwood, after feasting one day with his gay acquaintances at the Star and Garter at Richmond, grows remorseful and thinks of committing suicide; but a friend who has learnt his purpose fetches the forgiving wife in time to deter him. It happens, however, that Clarice is also feasting that evening with friends at the same fashionable resort, and she, too, determines to commit suicide, but with a more fatal result, for she takes poison and expires on the terrace. Thereupon Lady Dashwood, now fearless, like Delilah, of “partners in her love,” is reunited to her weak and worthless husband, whose pecuniary circumstances have just been much improved by the victory of his horse in an important race.
     Such is a bare outline of the story. It cannot be said that the numerous details with which it is extended to five acts serve much to improve its tone; or that “The Black Domino” is equal in interest or invention to “The Lights of Home” or other pieces from the same pens. Nevertheless the audience followed the play on Saturday evening with manifest pleasure, and lustily cheered the authors when in response to a unanimous call they made their appearance on the stage. To this favourable result some fresh touches of life in Mr. Sims’s manner undoubtedly contributed—the scene of the taking of the night charges at Bow-street, for example, and that in Covent-garden, where strayed revellers from the fancy ball mingle with the market porters, costers, stall-keepers, flower girls, and other factors in that busy spectacle. Added to this was the striking realism of some familiar localities depicted—always a special joy and delight to the patrons of Adelphi drama. Mr. Bruce Smith’s ball scene, with its multitude of dancers in various costumes, its countless electric lights, and its air of ample space, is really a triumph of stage illusion. The view of Covent-garden, with old Admiral Russell’s historical mansion, the market portico, and the solid Tuscan columns of Inigo Jones’s church, and finally the terrace of the hotel at Richmond, with the Ham meadows in the distance, and the ait and the winding river are also excellent. The wedding scene at Ferndale Church and park with the bridegroom and his friends of the hunt “in pink,” which furnishes the opening of the play, was, if more fanciful, extremely picturesque and pleasing. With a few exceptions the acting was not very remarkable. Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s Clarice lacks something of that actress’s customary spirit, and the authors have not succeeded in giving to the character of Mildred Vavasour, afterwards Lady Dashwood, the prominence which would enable Miss Evelyn Millard to give it the effect which seems to have been intended. Miss Bessie Hatton, on the other hand, imparted to the sketch of Rose Berton a fresh and touching individuality. The character of the weak and vacillating Dashwood is assigned to Mr. Charles Glenney, who plays it in his well-known emphatic manner, and that of Captain Greville falls of right to that excellent representative of crafty villains, Mr. Abingdon. Miss Clara Jecks is once more provided with the part of a sprightly lass, also with a comic lover in the person of Mr. Welton Dale, but their opportunities are less abundant than usual. Some minor characters are artistically played by Mr. Thalberg, Mr. John Le Hay, Mr. W. Dennis. The purely humorous element in the play falls almost entirely to the share of Mr. Arthur Williams, who plays an unctuous rogue of an attorney with a degree of comic force that was decidedly acceptable, notwithstanding some occasional offences against good taste.

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Glasgow Herald (3 April, 1893)

MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.
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(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

                                                                                                  London, Sunday Night.

     In “The Black Domino,” which was successfully produced at the Adelphi last night, Messrs Sims and Buchanan have to a certain extent departed from the beaten track of Adelphi melodrama. The hero this time is not the incarnation of all the virtues, but is very much a human being, behaving, indeed, in more than one situation in the play very like a scoundrel. It is, perhaps, partly for this reason that the authors have made him a lord, for the titled personage of Adelphi melodrama usually is a double-dyed villain, and the much persecuted hero a member of the working class. Lord Dashwood is about to marry Mildred Vavasour in a pretty village church, when there arrives for his discomfiture Clarice Berton, a woman whom his Lordship has ruined and deserted, and who has now become a notorious character. The ceremony, a “pink wedding,” is, however, not stopped, and Mildred becomes Lady Dashwood. It is now the business of the typical Adelphi villain, Captain Greville, aided and abetted by a Jew money-lender (a part played by Mr Arthur Williams), to destroy the domestic happiness of the young couple, for Captain Greville, of course, was an unsuccessful suitor for Lady Dashwood’s hand. As his Lordship, despite his marriage, is by no means “off with the old love,” it is the captain’s object to betray him to his wife. This leads to the marvellously realistic scene of the fancy dress ball at Covent Garden, a merrier affair than the real ball, which is occasionally rather dull, but sufficiently true to life to elicit the hearty applause of Sir Augustus Harris, who was present in the stalls. Lady Dashwood has recognised at the ball her husband in company with Clarice Berton, and in a fainting condition, still disguised in her black domino, she is taken in a cab by the Captain to his chambers. Lord Dashwood also hears that his wife has left the ball with the Captain, and as he starts in pursuit we seem likely to have again a situation similar to that in “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” The Captain has little respect for his visitor, and his advances aroused the ire of the lady, who is rescued from her perilous situation by the now repentant Clarice. Clarice, on leaving the ball, finds herself in a wonderfully realistic scene of Covent Garden Market in early morning, and  there she meets her sister, a market girl, and learns that her father has been assisted by the charity of the woman whom she is endeavouring to ruin. Clarice is therefore led to the Captain’s chambers, and when the host is called for a moment form the room she assists Lady Dashwood to escape, and donning the domino awaits the arrival of the husband. We need not tell in detail how Lord Dashwood goes from bad to worse, forges his father’s name, and contemplates suicide in an extremely picturesque scene on the terrace of the Star and Garter at Richmond. It will suffice that the erring husband is eventually forgiven by his wife after he has administered a well-deserved thrashing to the captain, and that he is saved the risk of further temptation by the suicide of Clarice Berton. The last-named part is cleverly played by Mrs Patrick Campbell. Mr Abingdon was the villain, and Mr Glenny and Miss E. Millard the husband and wife.

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The Penny Illustrated Paper (8 April, 1893 - p.217)

“The Black Domino.”

THE Adelphi has in the new five-act drama of “The Black Domino” a play admirably suited to the tastes of this playhouse, the chief metropolitan home of melodrama. The authors, MM. George R. Sims and Robert Buchanan, have devised expressly for the Adelphians a series of moving situations and strongly contrasted characters; and the enterprising managers, Mr. A. and Mr. S. Gatti, have evidently given that accomplished scenic artist, Mr. Bruce Smith, carte blanche to embellish “The Black Domino” in the richest manner possible. The result is a succession of impressive tableaux exceptionally attractive, riveting the attention from start to finish, the most brilliant scene being the wonderfully realistic representation of a

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Fancy-Dress Ball

at Covent Garden Opera House. This is a veritable triumph. Here we have an orchestra and private boxes built up on the stage, and gay pleasure-seekers gazing from these substantial boxes at the kaleidoscopic crowd dancing below—a gorgeous medley of costumes and a crowning managerial achievement that drew forth volleys of applause. Sir Augustus Harris and Mr. F. Latham were among those in front who testified most heartily to the success of this bal masqué, and of its complete triumph no possible doubt whatever could have been entertained when the curtain fell upon Lord Dashwood’s recognition of his wife in the “Black Domino,” and upon the villanous Captain Greville’s carrying off of the senseless form of Lady Dashwood. The chief interest centres in the illicit passion of Captain Greville for Lady Dashwood. It is this designing captain who manœuvres to frustrate Lord Dashwood’s marriage by drawing to the church on the wedding morning a knavish solicitor to whom his Lordship is heavily in debt, and also the lord’s cast-off mistress, Clarice Berton. Clarice is the elder and runaway daughter of the old French organist, Pierre Berton; and it is only the main force of her horror-stricken father that prevent the deserted woman from exposing the dissolute doings of her seducer before his bride. Apart from this sensational occurrence, the scene of this “Pink Wedding,” with bride and bridegroom passing through the avenue of hunting-men in pink, makes a very pretty opening picture. I don’t think it would be quite fair to the dramatists to explain by what ingenious expedient Clarice Berton saves the fair name of Lady Dashwood, or how she reunites the estranged lord and lady in the end. Suffice it to say, on this point, that the “soiled dove” who goes by the name of “Belle Hamilton” eventually dies by poison administered by her own hand, in a beautifully picturesque scene disclosing a lovely vista of the Thames at Richmond as viewed from the Star and Garter Hotel. Not less vivid than the fancy-dress ball is the elaborate set scene of Covent Garden Market in the morning, with the carnival revellers hieing home, and with Clarice’s discovery of her sister Rose in a florist’s assistant. This leads to the most sympathetic scene of all. It takes place in the garret of poor blind Pierre Berton; opening with the gift of a hamper, brought by light-hearted Chevenix Chase and Dolly Chester, and closing with Pierre’s reconciliation with his lost daughter Clarice and with little Rose’s surrender of her heart to her devoted lover. Infinitely touching is this exquisitely conceived and well-represented garret scene, admirably acted by Mr. G. W. Cockburn as Pierre Berton and by Miss Bessie Hatton and Mrs. Patrick Campbell as his daughters Rose and Clarice, and by piquante Miss Clara Jecks and Mr. Walton Dale as the music-hall star and her admirer. Miss Evelyn Millard, too, deserved praise for her embodiment of Lady Dashwood, while the earnest, buoyant style of Mr. Charles Glenney made the character of Lord Dashwood appear less despicable than it really was. Mr. W. L. Abingdon made a characteristically cool villain as Captain Greville. As the knavish, pleasure-loving solicitor, Joshua Honeybun, Mr. Arthur Williams caused much laughter; and Mr. John Le Hay, in the small part of Major O’Flaherty, added to the liveliness of “The Black Domino.” Actors and actresses, Mr. Sims and Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Bruce Smith, and Mr. Stefano Gatti well deserved the calls they obtained. It should be added that, as indicated in the drawing by a P.I.P Artist, “The Black Domino” was produced at the Adelphi under the personal direction of Mr. Sims and Mr. Buchanan, who were doubtless duly thankful to Mr. E. B. Norman, the stage manager, for the easy working of their elaborately mounted and brilliantly successful piece.

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The Graphic (8 April, 1893 - Issue 1219)

Easter Pieces

BY W. MOY THOMAS

“THE BLACK DOMINO”

     THE story of the new romantic drama at the ADELPHI fails to satisfy the claims of what is known as “poetical justice”; for it leaves the persistent wrongdoer in possession of rich rewards, while it brings his victim to a cruel and untimely end. All this, however, is strictly consonant with the cynical tone which has come over the Drama—it is to be hoped only temporarily—in these latter days. That Easter holiday audiences—as a rule a good-natured and a well-disposed race—have felt any special pleasure in the contemplation of the heartless profligacy and meanness of Messrs. Sims and Buchanan’s hero, or would have been less gratified if Lord Dashwood had been fashioned after such models as Harold Armytage and David Kingsley, no one can, with any degree of confidence, affirm. What is certain is that The Black Domino won great favour from a first-night audience, and appears to be in a fair way to rank among the successes of this popular house.
     It is a long story which the authors have set forth in five acts with ten changes of scene and seven-and-twenty personages, without counting the personæ mutæ; and the episodes, both grave and gay, are like the gable-ends of the old  maypole, decidedly  more than a lazy man would care to count “on a sunny day;” but in its essential features the tale is simple. It is that of an idle young nobleman who decoys the pretty eldest daughter of a worthy old organist from her village home, deserts her to marry a wealthy lady, treats his wife almost as badly as he has treated his mistress, weakly yields to temptations which include the forgery of his noble father’s signature to a bill of exchange for 15,000l., and, when he has narrowly escaped just retribution for his misdeeds, grows suddenly remorseful at a dinner-party at the Star and Garter at Richmond. Thereupon he is supposed to be restored to lasting peace and contentment, partly through the forgiving temper of his wife, partly through a  lucky turn of fortune’s wheel, and partly through the obliging self-sacrifice of the organist’s once innocent, but now notorious, daughter, Clarice Berton, alias Belle Hamilton, who, by taking poison on the terrace of the Richmond hotel, removes the last remaining source of Lady Dashwood’s uneasiness. Thoughtful spectators might, perhaps, ask themselves by what right Lord and Lady Dashwood should, in such light-hearted fashion, build their happiness upon the wreck and ruin of the village beauty? or what guarantee there can be of the permanence of this contemptible hero’s sudden repentance? But these are clearly not of the stuff whereof ADELPHI audiences are made. To be just, little time is left to them for reflection in the presence of the picturesque and stirring scenes which succeed each other so swiftly. When Lord Dashwood chooses for his marriage ceremony the church which faces the cottage of his mistress’s father, his imprudence as well  as heartlessness  might well provoke wonderment; but the pretty and animated scene of the “pink wedding” carries all before it. Great, too, is the redeeming virtue of the marvellously realistic scene of the Fancy-Dress Ball at Covent Garden, where Lady Dashwood, in her “black domino”—which gives the title to the play—comes to spy upon the proceedings of her worthless husband. The Bow Street police-station—to which more than one of the personages finds his way after the wild excitements of the ball—also gave delight, if not as a familiar locality, at least by the lifelike touches of the sketches of what may be assumed to be typical “night-charges,” not forgetting the pert lad who desires to “send round to Sir Augustus Harris.” “He knows our family,” says the precocious youth, “my brother played one of the elephant’s legs in his pantomime,” whereat the popular manager of DRURY LANE who, on the first night, was taking his ease in the stalls, was seen to smile in a way that suggested that he would certainly have bailed out this humble reveller then and there. The scene before dawn in Covent Garden Market with all its surroundings and bustling details, and the terrace of the hotel at Richmond looking far away over the reach of the winding river, were not less efficient.
     Altogether Mr. Bruce Smith and Mr. Walter Johnstone must be credited with no small share in the success of Saturday evening. On the other hand the leading performers seemed as yet not quite at ease in the new play, Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Clarice being a little wanting in energy and confidence, and Miss Millard—though here, no doubt, the authors were most in fault—failing to impress the audience very deeply with the undeserved trials and humiliations to which Lady Dashwood is subjected. Miss Bessie Hatton, on the other hand, brought into very pleasing relief the character of the blind organist’s younger daughter, whose courage and devotion go far to console him for the ruin brought on their home by her sister’s profligacy. Mr. Glenney, speaking after his wont with a curious excess of accentuation, did all that could be done for a hero who is only once seen to behave with any approach to manly spirit. The villain of the story, who on this latter occasion receives a sound thrashing, much to the satisfaction of the ADELPHI gallery, is played by Mr. Abingdon with his customary incisiveness; and Mr. Arthur Williams contrives to render the escapades of a hypocritical old lawyer sufficiently diverting to win tolerance for their rather indecorous character. In a less conspicuous, but not unimportant way, the various scenes provide employment for the talent of that lively and amusing actress, Miss Clara Jecks, as well as those of Mr. Thalberg, Mr. John Le Hay, and other popular performers.

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The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post (8 April, 1893 - Issue 14012)

     Mr G. R. Sims has not been admiring Ibsen for nothing. The new play, “The Black Domino,” by him and Mr Robert Buchanan, produced on Saturday night by Messrs Gatti, instead of the ideal Adelphi hero has one who is not only a rogue, but a mean one to boot. The scenes are as pretty a series as have ever been seen at the theatre, and go far to blind the audience to the moral shortcomings of the hero. The first act is devoted to the wedding of Lord Dashwood (Mr Charles Glenney), which takes place in a moss-grown country church, attended by a gay party of red-coated huntsmen and by a throng of picturesque rustics. To the ceremony comes Belle Hamilton (Mrs Patrick Campbell), the revengeful mistress, bent upon insulting the bride; and here, also, is to be seen her aged father, a French musician, Pierre Berton, who, learning her true character for the first time, formally disowns her in order to lean upon the love of his younger daughter Rose, who, with himself, has been the grateful recipient of the bride’s bounties. Thanks to her father’s interposition, Belle is restrained from strong measures, but her revenge only takes the subtler form of drawing away the bridegroom from his allegiance, in which task she is assisted by Lord Dashwood’s best friend, Captain Greville (Mr W. L. Abingdon)—the sinister captain of convention. In the second act, which opens in Lord Dashwood’s house in town, the evil influences foreshadowed are in full swing. The young wife is being neglected, and Lord Dashwood is pretty deeply involved with Belle Hamilton, much against the dictates of his better nature. For purposes of his own, Captain Greville whispers the truth to Lady Dashwood (Miss Evelyn Millward) and informs her that her husband has an appointment with his mistress at the fancy dress ball at Covent Garden. As it happens, Lord Dashwood has only made this appointment with a view to breaking with his mistress for good, and the oddity of his plan to this end is to be explained, of course, by the dramatist’s necessities. The spectator is next conducted to the interior of Covent Garden Theatre, where a realistic representation of a fancy dress ball is give. In order to learn the truth, Lady Dashwood comes to the ball in the disguise which gives the play its title. The sight of her husband along with her worthless rival is too much for her nerves; she faints, and is promptly carried off to his chambers by Capt. Greville, whose object is to compromise her hopelessly. After the ball the roysterers make their way through Covent Garden Market, which, with its bustle, forms the next stage in the story. Here, again, dramatic as well as spectacular ends are served, as we make acquaintance with the honest Rose Berton, as a flower girl, who tells her disreputable sister, Belle Hamilton, of the benefits conferred upon their family by Lady Dashwood, and thus paves the way for the siren’s reformation. Belle Hamilton, having learnt that Lady Dashwood has been carried in an unconscious state to Captain Greville’s rooms, resolves to rescue her from this villain’s clutches. By this time Lord Dashwood, too, knows of his wife’s presence in Captain Greville’s rooms, but Belle Hamilton gets there before him, and by a trick of substitution, which Mr Sims originally employed with much effect in “The Lights of London,” the one woman takes the place of the other, Lady Dashwood escaping in her rival’s domino at the moment when her husband furiously invades the premises in search of her. Lord Dashwood does find a woman in his friend’s rooms, but to his surprise, no less than to the Captain’s, when her disguise is removed, it proves to be Belle Hamilton. In the fourth and fifth acts, Lord Dashwood’s monetary and conjugal difficulties are smoothed over. Something like a cordial understanding is even established between Lady Dashwood and the repentant courtesan, and the latter completes her self sacrifice by swallowing a dose of poison at one of her fast dinner parties on the terrace of the Star and Garter at Richmond. The hero has contemplated a similar immolation, but repented of it.

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The Theatre (1 May, 1893)

“THE BLACK DOMINO.”

A new and original drama, in five acts, by G. R. SIMS and ROBERT BUCHANAN.
First produced at the Adelphi Theatre on Saturday evening, April 1st, 1893.

     Lord Dashwood has studied what George Meredith calls “The Wild Oats Theory” to advantage. He has played prodigal son, and eaten the husks, and now intends settling down with loving Mildred Vavasour to one long course of fatted calf. One oat, however springs, full-blown from the earth, clad in sumptuous raiment, on his wedding morning. She is Clarice (alias Belle Hamilton) the seeming virtuous daughter of the French village organist. Despite this fact she would make a scene and proclaim Dashwood the libertine he is, but her father learns her secret, restrains her, and the wedded pair complete their triumphal march beneath the uplifted hunting crops of gentlemen in pink. Staid married life soon satisfies Dashwood, for in act ii. he is playing Samson to Belle’s languorous Delilah. The liaison has plunged him into debt, and the only way out according to Captain Greville, his friend (and Mildred’s rejected lover), is by forging his father’s name, which he obligingly consents to do. He determines once more, however, to be off with the old love, and decides to do it in the presence of witnesses, in fact at a Covent Garden fancy-dress ball. Thither Mildred, primed by Greville, follows him, to gather sufficient evidence to satisfy a jealous wife, to fall insensible, and be conveyed by Greville to his rooms. Meantime Clarice encounters her stolen sister acting as flower-girl in the market, learns that Mildred has been Lady Bountiful to this child and her now blind father, and hastens to the rescue. Arrived at Greville’s rooms she changes cloaks with the heroine, and when Dashwood comes to reproach Greville for his perfidy, shields her much as Mrs. Erlynne shielded Lady Windermere, or the showman the convict-hero of “The Lights o’ London.” Greville is now unmasked and receives a sound thrashing at the hands of Dashwood, who determines to suicide in the final scene—a lovely set of the Thames Valley as seen from the Star and Garter. But Belladonna Clarice is set upon the same end, clears him in the hearing of his forgiving wife, and takes morphia and dies—the forged bill trouble being concluded by the felonious purchase of the document by a wealthy friend. The acting was of the order known as popular. Mr. Abingdon as the villain was duly suave, cool, sinister. The comic money-lender of Mr. Arthur Williams was a playful usurer. The contemptible hero found salvation only through the vigour with which Mr. Glenny administered a drubbing to his quondam friend. Miss Hatton and Mr. Thalberg were the staunch, serious lovers. Mr. Dale and Miss Jecks, pitiably wasted upon a wretched part, the nagging comic ones. Mr. Cockburn as the blind organist was constrained to an over liberal use of the pathetic stop. Miss Millard had only to look pretty and winning. And Mrs. Campbell’s sensitive talent was employed upon Clarice. Upon her the interest centred, though the character was vaguely drawn. The method of the actress compelled attention, extorted admiration, and set one marvelling why the clever authors deliberately withheld from such an artist a study worthy of her quite exceptional powers.

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Also in the May, 1893 issue of The Theatre, ‘The Black Domino’ was spoofed in the section entitled ‘Condensed Dramas’. I’ve placed this on a separate page:

Condensed Dramas - The Black Domino

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Glasgow Herald (26 May, 1893)

     THE Adelphi is the latest victim to the prevalent theatrical depression, and Messrs Sims and Buchanan’s “The Black Domino,” which was produced on April 1, will be withdrawn on Saturday night, it thus having had a run of about two months. The piece should have had an excellent chance, but the present season is an extraordinary one, and has upset the best laid plans of many managers. It is understood that the Adelphi will remain closed for a short time, but some members of the company, among them Messrs Arthur Williams and Abingdon, will be transferred to strengthen the cast in “Forbidden Fruit” at the Vaudeville.

[Mrs. Patrick Campbell in The Black Domino from The Theatre (1 June, 1893)

The Theatre (1 June, 1893)

     MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL (the subject of one of our portraits this month), has leapt into prominence and popularity with the suddenness of a Miss Julia Neilson or a Mr. Rider Haggard. In June, 1890, she was an amateur, playing Marie de Fontanges in “Plot and Passion,” and known to few beyond that limited circle to whom the “Anomalies” of West Norwood are more than a name. In June, 1893, she is chosen from among the leading English actresses to fill the post of honour in Mr. Alexander’s notable St. James’s company, and, higher distinction still, to play the tragic heroine by whom Mr. Pinero’s fame as a great dramatist will stand. “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray” will not, however, be Mrs. Campbell’s introduction to its author. In November, 1889, she played Millicent Boycott in “The Money Spinner,” and impelled a writer in THE THEATRE to declare that, notwithstanding his vivid remembrance of Mrs. Kendal in the part, there was much in Mrs. Campbell’s rendering to commend, “much of strenuous effort and courage and womanliness, that exercised a great influence over her audience.” Before this, Mrs. Campbell had secured a flattering local success as Alma Blake in “The Silver Shield,” to which slap-dash person, however, her subdued and gentle style hardly permitted her to give suitable expression. A matinée of “As You Like It” two years ago introduced Mrs. Campbell to the London public. She received great encouragement from the critics as a body, and lavish praise from Mr.Clement Scott, whose ardent eulogy perhaps induced Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Sims to offer the actress the leading part, Astræa, in “The Trumpet Call,” in August, 1891. Her success was instant and emphatic. Her style was acclaimed as intellectual, and a roseate future was foreshadowed for one who could in an evening wean the Adelphines to semi-sympathetic villainy. Louder praise and predictions of a yet more brilliant future, rewarded her pathetic picture of Elizabeth Cromwell in “The White Rose” in April 1892, a still longer stride to the front being taken with Tress Purvis in “The Lights of Home” in September, 1892, and the extreme value of her severely restrained style becoming once more apparent in Clarice Berton in “The Black Domino,” which part Mrs. Campbell resigns in order to test her capacity for the higher drama in “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.”

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