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THEATRE REVIEWS 42. The Charlatan (1894) The Charlatan
by Robert Buchanan.
London: Haymarket Theatre. 18 January to 17 March, 1894.
Aberdeen: Her Majesty’s Theatre. 16 July, 1894. Novelisation: The Charlatan by Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray (London: Chatto & Windus, 1895.) Available at the Internet Archive: Vol 1, Vol 2.
Film: The Charlatan, directed by Sidney Morgan, 1916. Buchanan was accused of plagiarism regarding The Charlatan and items relating to the charge are available here: The Charlatan v. The Wonder-Worker. The Stage (7 December, 1893 - p.11) A claimant to the title, The Charlatan, has arisen in Mrs. John Aylmer, whose piece with that name has been played in the provinces. In consequence, Robert Buchanan’s new piece, which Mr. Beerbohm Tree will produce at the Haymarket, must be rechristened _____ Relative to this unfortunate clashing of titles Mr. Clement Scott, writing in the Daily Telegraph, says:—
What a pity it is that the compilation of an authorised list of play titles sanctioned by the Examiner of Stage Plays from the invaluable records contained in the library at the Lord Chamberlain’s office was stopped a few years back! Here is another case in point. _____ The “authorised list” mentioned by Mr. Scott was, you may remember, secured by THE STAGE; but, in consequence of ill-natured envy in certain quarters, the Lord Chamberlain was induced to countermand his permission for its weekly appearance. Thus a most valuable aid to managers and dramatists was nipped in the bud, and ever since confusion has been constantly arising over titles. ___ The Times (19 January, 1894 - p.3) HAYMARKET THEATRE. In a few words which he was called upon to speak at the fall of the curtain last night, Mr. Tree adopted the unusual course of announcing with what play he proposed to follow up The Charlatan. Whether he had some foreboding that Mr. Robert Buchanan’s latest work, though applauded by the first-night house, might be a little too strange and unfamiliar to win the sympathies of the general public did not appear: but, if some such idea haunted his mind, it is not unlikely to prove well founded. The Charlatan is a strange play, and it is concerned chiefly with subjects for which the ordinary playgoer cares little—theosophy and hypnotism. Science and common sense have, indeed, their representatives, but these do not cut a particularly agreeable figure and besides occupy quite a subordinate place in the action. Of love there is none at all—none, that is to say, which is likely to satisfy the romantic spectator who believes in happy endings and the like. It would be difficult to conceive a story less calculated to appeal to women, who are, after all, the mainstay of the drama. The Charlatan is nevertheless a clever piece of satire; it is finely acted and sumptuously placed upon the stage, all of which qualities may be counted upon to exercise their effect. The action passes at the castle of the Earl of Wanborough, who entertains surely the most mixed company ever devised by dramatist. There are a couple of theosophist impostors, Mme. Obnoskin and Philip Woodville, the latter fresh from India; a senile professor and bore who professes himself too old to have conclusions upon any subject; a young and wealthy Conservative, Lord Dewsbury; the local Dean, who excuses his presence at a theosophist séance because he meets with such strange people at his Bishop’s table; a decadent young man who believes in “individualism” and the “right to evolve,” who prefers art to nature, and who revels in the “aroma of social decay”; and, finally, a neuropathic young lady, Miss Arlington, who is addicted to somnambulism, and who is hoping to be placed in material or spiritual communication with her father, an adventurous traveller among the Mahatmas, but lost to the world for a couple of years and believed to be dead.
How little such a set of dramatis personæ can have in common may readily be guessed, and in endeavouring to fashion a dramatic story out of their relationship Mr. Buchanan applies himself to the thankless task of weaving a rope out of sand. The two theosophists have each objects of their own in view. That of Mme. Obnoskin, who is depicted by Miss Gertrude Kingston as a langorous and seductive lady of a somewhat exotic stamp, is to captivate the aged earl, who has theosophistic leanings; Woodville’s aim is to secure the hand of Miss Arlington, whom he had once met in Calcutta, and over whom he hopes to exercise a hypnotic influence. Upon this latter scheme the story turns; for Mr. Tree in Woodville, a sinister gentleman of mixed English and Parsee parentage, an “adept” in theosophy in more senses than one, but of otherwise unknown antecedents—the sort of character to which an actor skilled in make-up is naturally attracted; while in the Miss Arlington of Mrs. Tree and her “subjection” to Woodville’s influence is centred all the female interest of which the play can boast. The imposture is practised at a theosophist séance which occupies the second act. From India Woodville has derived secret information that Miss Arlington’s father is alive and about to return to England, and at the séance the spirit of the absent man is made to appear and announce the glad tidings. Just in the nick of time is the trick accomplished, for there is already an unopened telegram in the Earl’s hands from Arlington himself. Amazed at the manifestation, though unable to explain it, the company break up for the night, and the next act passes in “the turret-room,” which has been assigned to Woodville because it has the reputation of being haunted by “the white lady.” Between Woodville and Lord Dewhurst distrust has grown to open war, each laying claim to Miss Arlington’s affections; and the result of a stormy scene between the two men is that Woodville resolves to exercise hypnotic arts upon the lady and attract her to his room at midnight, so that if she will not be his wife she shall at least be nobody else’s.
Here it would seem that while exposing theosophy as an imposture Mr. Robert Buchanan is bent upon demonstrating the truth of hypnotism. It is unfortunate in these circumstances that he should not have been at pains to ascertain the principles of the science. At his casement Woodville stands and solemnly summons the patient to come to him from some distant part of the building. There has been no previous “suggestion” made to her of such a course; indeed the midnight summons is a sudden resolution on Woodville’s part and is addressed to a patient who is out of sight or hearing. Needless to say, no hypnotic influence at all could be exercised under such conditions. Mr. Buchanan is apparently under the primitive belief that there is on the hypnotist’s part some actual transmission or projection of will-power. This idea is still popularly entertained, no doubt, but scientifically it was exploded a hundred years ago, and finds no support more respectable than that of the telepathists to whose beliefs the theory of modern hypnotism as a purely material operation of the brain due to direct and tangible influences is, of course, wholly opposed. If old-fashioned sentiment is to be displaced on the stage by modern science, it is imperative at least that the science should be accurate. To Woodville’s unscientific appeal Miss Arlington responds; and from her appearance in the turret-room dates the revirement which in the fourth act brings the play to an end. The patient is so beautiful and so helpless in his hands, obedient to his will, that the man’s better nature is touched. He wakes her out of her somnambulistic condition and directs her to go back to her room, but not before he has made a clean breast of his villany. More than this, he next morning acquaints the Earl himself with the imposture, and prepares to leave the house in disgrace. Wounded by his avowals, Mme. Obnoskin divulges the fact that she has seen Miss Arlington visit Woodville’s room. The issue provided to this remarkable situation is that in parting as they do Miss Arlington professes herself touched by Woodville’s tardy qualms of conscience, and holds out hopes to him that they may meet again some day under happier conditions.
What manner of man Woodville is, and why he should thus suddenly be converted from a rogue into an honest man, just as his schemes have ripened, not all Mr. Tree’s art can make clear. The character remains at the end what it is at the beginning—an enigma. Mr. Tree makes it picturesque, but he cannot make it human. On a smaller scale the same volte-face takes place in Mr. Fred Kerr’s part of the Hon. Mervyn Darrell who, from being a pronounced decadent, suddenly throws aside his pessimistic nonsense and proposes to a pretty girl, who has all along been chaffing him upon his predilection for the “modern spirit.” The attitude of Miss Arlington herself is only to be explained upon some occult principle of “nerves,” while Mme. Obnoskin remains to the last an impostor. One or two incidental types alone are unexceptionable, notably the Dean of Mr. Allan and the Earl of Mr. Nutcombe Gould. The great champion of common sense, Lord Dewsbury, is curiously aggressive and unsympathetic, although invested with a certain amount of virility by Mr. Frederick Terry. In a word, Ibsen himself, for whom Mr. Robert Buchanan is understood to cherish little regard, could hardly be charged with greater perversity of plot and characterization than distinguishes The Charlatan. If cleverness were all sufficient in the dramatist, the prospects of The Charlatan would be excellent. Clever it unquestionably is, if occasionally ill-informed, but it contains nothing to stir the generous emotions of the public, the self-sacrifice of the chief character appearing only in the light of an unaccountable bêtise The next Haymarket production, according to Mr. Tree’s announcement, is to be an adaptation of a German play entitled Der Talisman. ___ The Daily News (19 January, 1894 - Issue 11103) THE DRAMA.
_____ “THE CHARLATAN” AT THE HAYMARKET. Since there is nothing more prone to be conservative than the stage and no class of persons more ready, as a rule, to take their stand upon the old ways than our modern playwrights, the dramatist who introduces us to new sources of serious interest deserves, in Johnsonian phrase, that his merits should be handsomely acknowledged. Mr. Robert Buchanan, in his new play, “The Charlatan,” at the Haymarket Theatre has, however, done more than this. He has not only ventured on the perilous ground of theosophy and hypnotism, but has contrived to make these themes the mainspring of a story which last night throughout four long acts excited curiosity and interest in no small degree, and finally won from a brilliant first-night audience an unanimous verdict of approval. That there are grave defects in the new piece may be admitted; foremost among these is its somewhat lame and hesitating dènouement, together with the dramatist’s occasional failure to make quite clear the precise limits which divide his hero’s charlatanry from his genuine power of hypnotic suggestion; but these faults will probably be amended. Meanwhile “The Charlatan” appears more than likely to postpone for a considerable time the production of that sombre play from the German which Mr. Beerbohm Tree, in his little speech after the fall of the curtain, announced, in spite of the cry of “No German goods!” from an anti-freetrader in the gallery, as among his future projects.
Mr. Buchanan’s hero is a mysterious Eurasian, calling himself Philip Woodville, who has studied Theosophy in the Far East, practises hypnotism, and is prepared to use his gifts and acquirements in a way to gain ascendancy over the mind of Isabel Arlington, niece and ward of the Earl of Wanborough, a somewhat weak-minded old nobleman, who is more than half-smitten with the Theosophic craze. Already a secret accomplice of Woodville is installed at Wanborough Castle, in the person of Madame Obnoskin, a shining light of the Theosophic world, who is young and beautiful, and not without hopes of becoming Countess of Wanborough. When Philip arrives as a guest at the same hospitable seat the twain are somewhat in the position of Donna Clorinde and Don Annibal in “L’Aventurière,” save that Philip, who has met and sentimentalised with her in India, is moved by an uncontrollable passion for the lady, in spite of her betrothal to her cousin, Lord Dewsbury. Isabel is dreamy and impressionable, and Philip’s plot is artfully woven. Her father, in travelling in Central Asia, has disappeared, and is generally believed to be dead; but Isabel still hopes for good tidings. It is upon this that Philip builds his schemes; for he has received intelligence that her father has merely been detained in Thibet by a long and dangerous illness, from which he is recovering. Assembling the company, including the fiercely sceptical Dewsbury, in the drawing-room at the Castle, he causes the lights to be lowered, and is then supposed to have power so to influence the mind of Isabel that she sees a vision of her father, while she receives from the lips of Philip the assurance that he lives. The lights are then raised, and this assurance is instantly confirmed by a telegram, which, being opened by the Earl, announces the fact that his brother has, in fact, arrived safe and sound in Calcutta. How far Mr. Buchanan’s scene is in accordance with received doctrines of hypnotism we will not pretend to say, but the audience last night, to whom the vision was visibly presented, were certainly a little puzzled to know whether it was to be regarded as simply a manifestation to the lady in her hypnotic condition. This exciting scene ends the second act. The third act, which passes in the Turret-room of the Castle, which, with the ramparts without, is supposed to be haunted by a traditional ghost of a white lady, introduces still more stirring matter. Philip, by the force of his will, is supposed to constrain his victim to arise from her bed and repair to the Turret-room where entranced she confesses her love for him. She is now in his power; but the position is supposed to awaken in him a great revulsion of feeling. Arousing her from her trance he voluntarily confesses his fraud and imposture and aids her to escape by a secret door just as a knocking at the entrance threatened discovery. The final act is devoted to the completion of Philip’s self-abasement. Like the reverend gentleman in Mr. Henry Arthur Jones’s “Judah,” he makes full and ample confession before the Earl and his guests; but his malicious accomplice, who had been the cause of the knocking at the Turret door, has discovered the secret and betrays to Lord Dewsbury the fact of his betrothed’s visit to the Tower. The only result, however, is to draw from Isabel an avowal of her love for Philip, who as the curtain falls is seen taking his leave, Isabel’s exclamation, “He will come back,” being the only gleam of comfort vouchsafed to the romantic class of spectators who are supposed to have an irresistible craving for what are called happy endings.
Mr. Tree’s task, which is that of making an interesting hero out of one who is guilty of persistently plotting the ruin of a helpless woman by frauds and tricks of a peculiarly mean and despicable kind, is obviously not an easy one. Captain Swift’s antecedents were decidedly discreditable, but he was permitted no denouement but that of suicide. The penitent Philip Woodville, on the other hand, is apparently to be rewarded with the hand of the Earl’s beautiful niece. Thanks, however, to the power of the actor, and the combined force, moderation, and high finish of Mr. Tree’s performance, these are considerations rather apt to occur after the fall of the curtain than during the progress of the play. Mrs. Tree’s touching impersonation of the heroine contributed in no less degree to absorb the attention of the spectator, and Miss Gertrude Kingston’s forcible performance as Madame Obnoskin rendered substantial service. Mr. Buchanan is to be complimented on the care which he has bestowed upon his minor sketches of character. Lord Dewsbury, played by Mr. Fred Terry, cuts, it is true, rather a poor figure, by reason of the fact that his function is chiefly that of assailing his insidious rival with impotent threats; but the Hon. Mervyn Darrel, who talks about “individuality” and the “new spirit,” and considers Dickens a vulgar optimist, becomes in the hands of Mr. Fred Kerr a highly-amusing creation, and his colloquies with Miss Lily Hanbury in the character of Lord Wanborough’s bright and sensible daughter, furnish abundant entertainment. Very good in its way too, is the sketch of Professor Marrables, the man of science, artistically played by Mr. Holman Clark, and the little sketch of Dean Darnley and his wife, played respectively by Mr. Allan and Mrs. E. H. Brooke. Even in the trifling part of Olive, their daughter, assigned to Miss Irene Vanbrugh, Mr. Buchanan has contrived to show observation of life. ___ The Pall Mall Gazette (19 January, 1894 - Issue 8994) “THE CHARLATAN” AT THE HAYMARKET. IT is scarcely surprising that a dramatist should have been found eager to avail himself of the opportunities afforded him by the possibilities, the probabilities, and the improbabilities of what is called hypnotism. The wonder rather is that it has not been made use of before in any conspicuous way upon the stage. It has already played its part in fiction; most notably, perhaps, in one of the grimmest and ablest of the short stories of Jules Claretie. But on the stage—at least in this country—hypnotism had been neglected until last night by any of the half-dozen writers whom Mr. Gilbert has isolated as leading dramatists. Mr. Buchanan—who is many things—is a satirist, and he has seen in the phenomena of hypnotism and in the characters of certain of its exponents and certain of its victims a timely and attractive quarry for his satirical powers. Björnstjerne Björnson, whose “Sigurd Slembe” Mr. Buchanan applauds, whose later plays he deplores, takes hystero-epilepsy seriously, and writes “Over Aevne.” Mr. Buchanan takes it satirically, and the result is “The Charlatan.”
But Mr. Buchanan’s Charlatan is not all a rogue. He wears his rue with a difference. If he is of the kindred of Herr Paulus in his impostures he shares with him a kind of saving grace. He will hunt you the white gazelle through a scene of somewhat too copious dialogue, but when at last he has got the white gazelle within range of his rifle, when he has lured the white girl to his lonely chamber in the haunted turret, then in the one case he will lower his piece and let the dear gazelle go free, and in the other he will forbear to take advantage of a somnambulistic young lady in voluminous nightgear. Philip Woodville is not wrought in the stuff of which great scoundrels are made. Whether we attribute his conduct to some leaven of the virtue still lingering in his heart, or to the fatal weakness which turns a triumph into a catastrophe, we see at least that he is not exactly what Claverhouse would call a cool and a daring villain. He is compact of inconsistencies. In one scene he declares that he claims no supernatural powers. In another he denounces himself for having falsely claimed them. He pronounces himself an impostor, a liar, and a cheat; and yet at the same time he is undoubtedly possessed of a very extraordinary influence, magnetic or hypnotic, or what you please, which draws a virtuous young woman from her bedchamber to his room and makes her obey him like a puppet.
But if he is inconsistent, if he is sometimes unintelligible, he has a merit that atones, the merit of interesting the spectator in his fortunes and misfortunes. At the first when he appears to be an audacious lustful rogue, and at the last when he is as repentant and as self-denunciating as Mr. Jones’s “Judah,” he still contrives to hold the situation, to charm the attention—to be, in a word, interesting in rascality and interesting in repentance. If the rest of the play, if the rest of the people, were as quick to command interest, it would be a more satisfactory piece of business. Mr. Buchanan has told the world, in one of his moments of candid confession, that as he was not brought up to carpentering or to any honest trade, he learned, so far as his powers would allow him, the art of playwriting, and learnt it so well that “even my enemies admit that I have some coarse skill in that way.” In “The Charlatan” Mr. Buchanan has evidently devoted his skill to the elaboration of his central figure to the detriment of the others. They are not very interesting, not very real, not very new. The best of them is a young man devoted to the culture of self, and the inane paradox a caricature, indeed, but sufficiently restrained to be effective and admirably played by Mr. Fred Kerr. The worst of them is the female villain, who is endowed with no share of the originality that Mr. Buchanan has put into his Charlatan, and with whom Miss Kingston could do little.
Much praise might be uttered of the acting of Mrs. Tree, and indeed, of all the company. But as the interest of the piece centred in the Charlatan, the interest of the acting centred in Mr. Tree. It is clearly a part which the student of the stage would recognize at once as one calculated to appeal very nearly to Mr. Tree. And on the whole his interpretation of a part which may or may not have been written for him, but which might very well have been written for him, must be applauded as exceedingly satisfactory, and as marking in certain important particulars an advance upon his most recent work. At one time it seemed to be necessary to address some words of warning to Mr. Tree. He has done so much good work that it was a pity to see him yielding to a temptation which must injure it, as yielding to a like temptation has injured another and an older actor. Every actor, being human, must have mannerisms. Mr. Tree has his mannerisms, as Mr. Irving has his mannerisms. But those who most judiciously admire Mr. Irving’s art regret the most the readiness with which Mr. Irving not merely accepted but fostered his mannerisms, and allowed himself to rely upon them as virtues when he ought to have battled with them as vices. There has been a tendency of late on Mr. Tree’s part to fall into the same error. It is Mr. Tree’s great merit that he possesses in a high degree the art of characterization; that he has succeeded, time and again, in identifying himself with his creations rather than his creations with himself, and has avoided in his finest achievements any concession to the vocal and physical mannerisms which he in common with every other actor must possess, and which he in common with every good actor must desire to dominate. Once or twice of late a certain willingness to accept instead of combating peculiarities of voice and gesture, and especially tricks of face-play, has been noticeable, as if the actor were content to admit an undue proportion of himself into the part he was creating.
The performance last night was markedly free from these defects. The actor seemed to resume again his power of characterization and to subdue his personality to the composition of the creature he represented. As far as the mechanical part of the task went, there could be no doubt about Mr. Tree’s success. He has never transformed his appearance with greater discretion, with more artistic effect. But the transformation did not cease with the make-up. In voice, in gesture, in carriage, Mr. Tree strove to present the child of blended bloods, the hybrid creature half English, half Parsee, the wary, watchful, unscrupulous adventurer whose Eastern exuberance is controlled by a Western calm. The creation will be welcomed not merely for its high intrinsic merit, but as a proof that the actor is still advancing in his art, is still willing to learn and eager to progress. ___ Birmingham Daily Post (19 January, 1894 - Issue 11103) LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.
_____ LONDON, Thursday Night. ... “The Charlatan,” Mr. Buchanan’s new four-act play of modern life, was produced at the Haymarket to-night, and at the fall of the curtain was accorded all the accustomed tokens of popular approval, the actors being twice summoned by the audience, and the author being called for and well applauded. The piece, indeed, had deepened in interest as it proceeded, until the middle of the last act, when it to some extent dropped; but it can certainly be said that Mr. Buchanan has not contributed to the stage a more thoughtful work. The Charlatan, who gives his name to the play, is a young Eurasian, son of an Englishman and a Parsee woman, not perhaps a union which appeals to Anglo-Indians as very probable—and this person, possessed of considerable hypnotic powers in which Mr. Buchanan seems to believe, but claiming even higher theosophic powers concerning which the General is obviously a sceptic, has come to England from Calcutta, anxious to meet again a beautiful girl, the niece and ward of an Earl, whom he had met in India just before her father had gone to Thibet upon an exploring expedition, which is thought by all but her to have proved fatal. The earl is a believer in Theosophy, and Philip Woodville, as the adventurer is named, is not only welcomed with eagerness by the credulous old peer, but has an ally already in the house in the person of an acquaintance—Madame Obnoskin—the priestess of the cult, and as conscious a humbug as himself. The heroine who had once thought she loved Woodville, is engaged to a young peer, who is about to enter a Tory Cabinet on the brink of formation, but, using his secret knowledge of her father’s safety, Woodville once more overpowers her affection, and using his hypnotic influence he draws her in her sleep to his room. Then, however, his good angel asserts itself. He wakes the girl, tells her the peril she has encountered, bids her depart in safety, and as the only reparation confesses his imposture not only to her, but to the Earl. His confederate, angry at the admission completes the tale by relating the painful incident of the previous night of which she had obtained knowledge, and while the budding Cabinet Minister, not unnaturally, considers this sufficient to close the engagement, the girl confesses to Woodville that she loves him, and he goes away with the hope of returning to her when he has redeemed his misspent life. The story, as will be seen, is scarcely a strong one to bear the burden of four acts, and some of its devices are clearly of the stage, but when some redundant dialogue has been omitted from the first half of the play, and the performers have shaken off the first night nervousness which this evening strikingly affected more than one of them, it will prove interesting.
The acting throughout was excellent, and the piece could scarcely have been better “cast.” Mr. Tree, admirably made up as the Eurasian adventurer, had both a showy and an effective part, and although in the great scene of the trial act he seemed, perhaps by the tact of the author, to be unduly surprised at the effect worked by his own experiment in hypnotism, he displayed much feeling as well as force, though the opportunities for exhibiting the sardonic humour of which he is a master were fewer than his admirers would have wished. Mrs. Tree was excellent in every respect as the heroine, and in the scene just mentioned, where, in her sleep, she walks and tells her love, and then is suddenly awakened to all the horrors of the situation, she played with a tenderness and a power which were at once touching and effective in a high degree. She has done, in fact, nothing so fine since her “mad scene” as Ophelia in “Hamlet,” and she more than deserved the hearty applause which the audience accorded her. Mr. Fred Terry, as the somewhat insolent young aristocrat, who is awaiting an almost immediate summons to Downing Street, had a part not worthy of his powers, but Mr. Nutcombe Gould was a thoroughly effective representative of the credulous old peer. Mr. Holman Clark was capital as a somewhat enfeebled professor, who is too far advanced in years and knowledge to have settled conclusions upon anything, and Mr. Fred Kerr and Miss Lily Hanbury were more than efficient as a pair of young lovers whose view of life promised to be tinged with comedy. “The Charlatan,” therefore, despite its obviously recalling Mr. Besant’s novel “Herr Paulus” in some passages, and Mr. Henry Arthur Jones’s play “Judah” in others, appealed to tonight’s audience with a result which author and actors alike must have found satisfactory. ___ The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post (19 January, 1894 - Issue 14256) THE CHARLATAN. Mr Tree produced Mr Robert Buchanan’s new play, “The Charlatan,” at the Haymarket Theatre, London, for the first time last night. The play deals with hypnotism, and one of the effects is a spiritualistic seance, and the actor-manager depicts the character of an exponent of theosophy of Hindoo extraction, who, though he at first uses his hypnotic power to influence the heroine, afterwards becomes touched by her love for him, and avows himself an imposter, an act of self-sacrifice, which, however, only increases her affection for him. Mr Tree, as the exponent of theosophy, made a very marked success, which was shared in no small degree by Mrs Tree as Isabel Arlington. Mr Fred Terry, Mr Frederick Kerr, and Miss Lily Hanbury appeared with marked success in their parts. The curtain was raised three times at the conclusion of the second and third acts. The company were called the same number of times at the end of the play, and a special call was made for the author, and Mr Tree, in response to the demands for a speech, briefly thanked the audience for their reception, and announced that in all probability his next production would be an adaptation of “The Talisman,” a play which has excited the greatest interest in Germany. ___ Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin) (19 January, 1894) MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN’S
NEW PLAY.
_____ “THE CHARLATAN.”
___ PERFORMANCE LAST NIGHT
AT THE HAYMARKET.
_____ (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
(BY SPECIAL WIRE.) London, Thursday Night. The Haymarket premieres under Mr Tree’s management take rank among the most brilliant in the theatrical world of London. He has imparted to the Haymarket Theatre a distinctly attractive individuality, and his audiences always feel that any piece produced under his auspices will be interpreted by a carefully chosen and highly capable company and scenic accessories on which a cultured and discriminating taste has been expended. So it was that, despite the absurd superstition that nobody who is anybody deigns to be seen in London at this ungodly time of year, the stalls contained to-night a very representative gathering of those notable personages in literature, art, and society without the cachet of whose patronage no new piece aspiring to importance is considered to be duly ushered into public notice. That Mr Buchanan’s latest play is of importance there is no question. It marks an epoch both in his own career as a dramatic author and in that of Mr Tree in the presentation of a curiously interesting and composite character. “The Charlatan” will probably, or perhaps certainly, be reviled by the apostles of what one of his characters calls “the new spirit.” Mr Buchanan has, indeed, so far bowed the knee to that spirit as to let the curtain fall in the last act with a note of interrogation, but the fact that the answer is quite clear and suggests a happy ending will make his work anathema to the devotees of the dismal.
The scene of the play is Wanborough Castle. The action is compressed into a few days. Wanborough is the ancestral home of the earl of that name, a worthy old gentleman—a widower with one daughter, and a leaning to the “new spirit” in its religious manifestations. He is at present a prey to Theosophy, and has under his roof Madame Obnoskin, one of the elect of the Theosophic hierarchy, who thinks that the old man’s craze can be developed to the point of an offer of marriage. The household also includes Isabel Arlington, a ward of Lord Wanborough’s whose father, Colonel Arlington, a great explorer, had never returned from a journey undertaken a couple of years before into the wilds of Thibet, and who was given up for dead. Isabel (Mrs Tree) was a high-strung, sensitive, imaginative girl, and she still hoped against hope that her missing father would return. She had become engaged since her return to England to Lord Dewsbury (Mr Fred Terry), a blunt, honourable, narrow-minded, and eminently unsympathetic specimen of the English gentleman. Dewsbury regarded Theosophy and all its works not only with contempt but aversion, and he deplored the influence that Madame Obnoskin and other impostors obtained over his aged kinsman. Isabel, on the other hand—a woman of a nervous, spiritual type, whose mind, overwrought by anxiety and hopes deferred, was highly susceptible to mystical impressions—regarded Madame Obnoskin with a feeling approaching dread. The Russian lady, on her side, was in secret communication with Philip Woodville (Mr Tree), an arch impostor of the Theosophic brethren, who had, under a different name, met and loved Isabel in India. Philip, anxious to follow up his suit, placed himself in communication with Lord Wanborough, who, only too ready to extend his hospitality to so distinguished a member of the sect in which he was interested, invited him to Wanborough. On his arrival, Isabel recognises the man whose addresses she had rejected in India, but she meets him to all appearance as a stranger, an attitude which it is superfluous to say is also adopted by his ally, Mdme Obnoskin. When they are alone, however, Isabel resents Woodville’s intrusion, but she is powerless against his strong will, and half by menace, half by persuasion, he convinces her in part that he can be of service to her, and had better remain. Meantime he was aware from his agents in Thibet that Isabel’s father still lived, and he resolved to make use of that knowledge to prove to the sceptics his preternatural powers, and, as Isabel’s mind was absorbed by thoughts of her father, to advance his suit with her. Arrangements are made for a seance, as he is apprehensive that the news of Colonel Arlington’s safety may arrive through other channels, and just at the moment when the party is listening to his preliminary observations, couched in the familiar Theosophic jargon, a telegram is handed to Lord Wanborough. Fearing that it is from Colonel Arlington, Woodville prevents the Earl from reading it by suddenly turning down the lights and plunging at once into a melodramatic exhortation to the spirits in communion with him. He addresses himself pointedly to Isabel, who implores him to ascertain whether her father lives. He replies that he does, and the deception is further assisted by a momentary apparition of the missing man arranged by Mdme Obnoskin and Woodville from a portrait they had seen of him. Isabel, overcome by emotion, swoons; the lights are again turned on, Lord Wanborough opens the telegram he has in his hand, and finds it a confirmation of Woodville’s apparently occult knowledge. The most sceptical are astonished, Isabel is overpowered with joy and delight, and Woodville is triumphant.
In the next act we are introduced to the turret room, next the bedroom occupied by Woodville, whither his host has accompanied him to talk over the amazing events of the evening. Woodville maintains the deceit easily with so gullible a subject, and announces his departure on the following morning. The Earl, chatting about the history of the turret-room, tells him that some hundreds of years before it was the scene of a tragedy in which an ancestress of his lost her life. She was detected meeting her lover at dead of night on the battlements, which he gained by a secret door behind the hangings on the wall. When the Earl leaves, Dewsbury enters and tauntingly invites Woodville to acknowledge the imposture he has performed on the company. Hot words ensue, Dewsbury denounces him as a charlatan, and there is almost a personal encounter. Woodville, who was tearing himself away from Wanborough under the influence of a glimmering of honour that Isabel’s innocence and beauty were awakening within him, is maddened by the contumely heaped upon him by Dewsbury, and in a frenzy of passion he resolves to exercise his hypnotic influence once more upon Isabel. She has been almost in a state of trance since the performance in the White Gallery, and Woodville looking down at her window wills her to come to him. Presently he sees her approaching, all in white, and half terrified at the success of his suggestion, he opens the door of his room, which she enters in her sleep. He extracts from her an unconscious avowal that she had always loved him, and had only seemed indifferent because she was suspicious of his character. Woodville is completely overwhelmed by the guileless purity of Isabel, and in a moment of supreme revulsion of feeling he vows to sacrifice himself for her sake. He first awakens her. She is appalled to find herself in his room. He then confesses himself a charlatan and an impostor, acknowledges the cheat he had practised on her credulity that night, and having humbled himself to the dust in her sight, says he will never see her more. She is still almost in a dream, but gives evidence that she realises the depths of his devotion, and is on the point of leaving the room when there is a knock at the door. Discovery would be ruin to Isabel, and Woodville fortunately remembers the secret door in the wainscot, which he opens, and through which she escapes.
The concluding act opens the following morning, when Woodville has confessed to Lord Wanborough how he had duped him—to that old gentleman’s intense disgust and annoyance—and Dewsbury is giving a disdainful commendation to the “Charlatan” for his eleventh hour penitence. Madame Obnoskin enters, learns that the whole scheme has been exposed, and in her rage she turns upon Woodville and asks him was not Isabel in his room the night before when everyone had gone to bed. It was Madame Obnoskin’s knock that had hastened the conclusion of the midnight interview, and she had seen Isabel escaping along the battlements. Dewsbury is frantic with jealousy at this disclosure, and when Isabel enters he taxes her with her seeming duplicity. Woodville makes a clean breast of the circumstances under which she had visited him, and Isabel, stung by the incredulity of Dewsbury, avows her preference for Woodville, who had sacrificed everything on her account. Dewsbury retires discomfited, the Earl half commends the “Charlatan,” and the curtain falls as Woodville, after a tender parting with Isabel, leaves, while she says, “He will come back—I know he will.”
It will be seen that there is some slight resemblance between the character of Philip Woodville and that of Captain Swift, in which Mr Tree formerly made so great a success. But the resemblance is faint in the extreme, and Philip Woodville is a clearly individualised creation of very striking ability. He certainly is no common charlatan, and Mr Tree invests the character with a power and fascination which make the successful imposition of his Theosophic mysticism on the party at Wanborough seem quite possible. Woodville appears to have a kind of half belief in his own supernatural gifts, and when alone with Madame Obnoskin he does not throw aside the mask with quite the same unreserve as that rather patent adventuress. In the turret-room scene, where Mr Tree has to depict the sudden conversion of Woodville, he is at his very best. The transformation is genuine, convincing, and intensely pathetic—a tour de force in the plausible reconcilement of two apparently opposite extremes of character. In the other scenes Mr Tree displays his usual command, subtle and polished skill, and the appreciation on the part of the audience of the immense ability of the whole performance could not well be more enthusiastic. Mrs Tree plays the exceedingly difficult part of Isabel with singularly striking effect. In the turret act she depicted the half consciousness of the sleep-walker with remarkable cleverness, and a scene which, if handled with less delicacy and restrained realism, might easily have been spoiled, proved perhaps the most successful of a highly successful play. Miss Gertrude Kingston as Mdme Obnoskin was seen to great advantage, while Mr Fred Terry managed to make the priggish Lord Dewsbury a far more dislikable character than the “Charlatan.” Mr Frederick Kerr as the Hon Mervyn Darrell gave one of those character sketches in which he excels. The Hon Mervyn Darrell is an exponent of the new spirit, and he indulged in numerous paradoxes of the usual description which no one seemed to enjoy more than Mr Oscar Wilde, who sat in the second row of the stalls. Miss Lily Hanbury looked very charming as Lord Wanborough’s daughter, and acted with decided spirit in the two scenes in which Darrell proposes to her. Mr Nutcombe Gould was a courtly Lord Wanborough, and the minor parts, which well deserve individual notice but for the lateness of the hour, were excellently filled by Mr C. Allan as a worldly dean, Mrs E. H. Brooke, his righteous spouse, and Miss Irene Vanbrugh as his sprightly daughter. The scenery was, of course, exquisitely tasteful, and was especially noteworthy for sunset and moonlight effects of real beauty. At the conclusion of each act the players were recalled again and again, and at the fall of the curtain, after repeated recalls, Mr Buchanan responded to cries for the author, and Mr Tree made a short speech, in which he announced that his next venture, at the conclusion of the long run anticipated for the present one, would be a religious play from the German entitled “The Talisman.” ___ The New York Times (19 January, 1894) Buchanan’s New Play Produced. LONDON, Jan. 18.—”The Charlatan, a New Play of Modern Life,” by Robert Buchanan, had its first night at the Haymarket Theatre this evening. It is a satire on Theosophy. Beerbohm Tree as Philip Woodville played the title role, assisted by Miss Kingston as Mme. Obnoskin. In a seance at the Earl of Wanborough’s country seat Mme. Obnoskin summons the vision of the missing father of Wanborough’s niece, whom Woodville loves. The seance is followed by a thrilling scene in the turret chamber, where the Charlatan compels the niece to walk in her sleep and confess her love to him.
The play is badly joined, but, despite its timeworn situations, is thoroughly interesting. It was received with cordial approval, and there were repeated curtain calls. ___ The New York Times (21 January, 1894) Robert Buchanan’s “Charlatan,” at the Haymarket, affords a vehicle for another of Beerbohm Tree’s very striking character studies, and curiosity to see this may keep the play on the boards for some weeks. Without this one part—and even that is the triumph of an actor in deadly despite of the author—the play is most unworthy rubbish. ___ New-York Daily Tribune (21 January, 1894 - p.2) Mr. Beerbohm Tree produced at the Haymarket on Thursday evening a new play by Mr. Robert Buchanan entitled “The Charlatan.” This is not an autobiographical sketch, but a dreary exposition of the more superficial aspects of theosophy and hypnotism. The piece is dull, disjointed, undramatic and hardly intelligible. The degree of toleration to which it attained with a friendly first-night audience was due to the excellent acting of Mr. and Mrs. Tree and some of their colleagues, to the care bestowed on its staging, and to a certain fitful melodramatic quality altogether alien from true dramatic art.
G. W. S. ___ From The Theatrical ‘World’ of 1894 by William Archer (London: Walter Scott, Ltd., 1895 - p. 32-38) “THE CHARLATAN.”
24 January. MR ROBERT BUCHANAN has written for the Haymarket Theatre an interesting, effective, and quite intelligent play, which will in all probability enjoy a long run. The Charlatan, as its name portends, is concerned with the impostures of modern miracle-mongering, and at the same time dallies pleasantly with some other crazes and affectations of the day. Mr Buchanan is a firm believer in the maxim “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do” (and his are certainly not the idle hands for which Satan provides employment), “do it with all thy might.” For the moment, he is writing popular drama, and he spares no pains to make it popular in every sense of the word. He leaves the how and why of imposture—the temptations of the Charlatan and the cravings of his dupes—to Bostonian novelists and other dabblers in nice distinctions and fine shades. The business of the popular stage, as Mr Buchanan very justly recognises, does not lie in analysis, casuistry, or any sort of moral hairsplitting. The dramatist should not seek to impart or suggest new knowledge or thought, but should simply appeal, as regards character, to the common stock of observations,—as regards morals, to the currently accepted standards. Mr Buchanan’s impostors, then, are impostors pure and simple, innocent of self-deception, and actuated by sheer, undiluted self-interest. One of them, it appears, has genuine hypnotic powers, which he exercises through the medium of eloquent adjurations that smack of the Old rather than the New Demonology. He has also a knack of summoning up “astral bodies,” under conditions which seem very unfavourable for any Pepper’s-Ghost or magic-lantern trickery. A less skilful playwright would probably have taken some trouble to explain the apparition of Colonel Arlington; but Mr Buchanan knows that we are quite prepared to take it on trust, if only the situation, of which it forms the culminating point, interests and thrills us. He knows, too, that audiences are devout adherents of what Professor Marrables would probably call the catastrophic theory in psychology, especially where the purifying power of love comes into play. Therefore he has deftly contrived to introduce the necessary element of sympathy into his theme, by instantaneously converting his Cagliostro into a Bayard as soon as the woman he loves is in his power and at his mercy. There are, no doubt, superfine persons who will call this “rudimentary” and “childish.” Perhaps, in another mood, I should have done so myself. But Mr Buchanan had somehow managed to put me in just the right mood for this pleasant piece of romance; and what is the inmost secret of the playwright’s art, if it be not to beget in his hearers the mood he requires for the purposes of his fable? Mr Buchanan played on the right strings throughout. The entrance of the mysterious Philip Woodville was a piece of truly scenic imagination; the séance of the second act was admirably handled, with real originality and skill; the third act was charmingly picturesque and romantic; and the fourth act, which might easily have been an anticlimax, kept its hold on my interest and my sympathies to the end. The comic or satiric scenes, too, contain a good deal of light and clever badinage, at which one cannot choose but smile; and altogether we have to thank Mr Buchanan for a well-imagined, and skilfully and genially executed, romance, which filled an evening very pleasantly, and will doubtless fill a long series of evenings at the Haymarket.
There! At last! I have had nothing but praise for a play of Mr Robert Buchanan’s, and have said, withal, exactly what I think about it. It is the proudest moment in my life. I have not lived in vain, and can die happy.
And now, having achieved one of my most cherished ambitions, I may whisper a thought which I have hitherto studiously dissembled, lest it might introduce a jarring note into the millennial harmonies of the foregoing paragraph. It seems to me that in the character of Philip Woodville, Mr Buchanan has been on the verge of lapsing into subtlety, and sinking almost to the Bostonian level. What he intended I do not quite know, for he has not lapsed into lucidity; but I seem to see in Philip the glimmerings of a novel and delicately-observed character-type. I permit myself the Bostonian indiscretion of inquiring: What are the motives of his imposture? and I see a possible answer which Mr Buchanan at least says nothing to contradict. He does not seem to be a mere needy adventurer; so far as we can make out, money is no object with him. What, then, has made him a charlatan ? May we answer, that he is one of those people (and they are not so rare as you perhaps think) who love imposture for its own sake, or, more precisely, for the power it confers, and the skill and daring it calls into play? The game of deceit has its fascination like any other sport, and it is the crudest misconception to suppose that even the criminal is always actuated by the gross, material considerations which we describe as “mercenary motives.” Who can doubt that men and women have sometimes yielded to the sheer intellectual fascination of “murder as a fine art,” avid of the glorious excitement of baffling justice? When they fail, we call them homicidal maniacs; but who knows how many may have succeeded, and gone to their graves in the odour of sanctity and sanity? The literary impostors, again—the Chattertons, Irelands, and Colliers—is it for mere filthy lucre, or even for the sake of renown, that they go about their nefarious work? Suppose Ireland could have reaped endless glory and profit from the production of Vortigern under his own name, would it have given him half the pleasure, think you, that he received from palming it off as Shakespeare’s? The sense of power which belongs to adept rascality—the sense of intellectual, ay, and moral, exaltation over your fellows—must be one of the finest intoxications of which human nature is capable. Then refine a little further upon this, and, without going beyond the bounds of the possible and even probable, you can conceive an impostor of such truly “sporting” temperament that he cares only for the excitement of the chase, and not at all for bringing down the game. Once assured that it is at his mercy, he lets it slip through his fingers without a second thought. Thus, for example, one can imagine a Don Juan—and is this Joseph-Juan quite imaginary?—making victims on all hands, enough to tax the arithmetic even of a Leporello, yet always desisting from the chase just at the psychological moment. May we not take Philip Woodville to be an impostor of this sort? Mr Buchanan seems almost to indicate as much in the apologue of the white gazelle, which prepares us for the revolution of the third act. There is, in short, a pleasant field for speculation in the character of this “Eurasian Mystery.” One could fill columns with conjectures as to what the author intended or might have intended. He has had a very narrow escape. A little more clearness and consistency, and he might have drawn a character worthy of Mr Howells—and passed the rest of his days in an agony of contrition.
Mr Beerbohm Tree’s performance of the enigmatic Philip is polished, picturesque, and, in the later acts, full of genuine feeling. His make-up is masterly; and, take it all in all, his chivalrous Charlatan is an immense advance, in point of artistic finish, upon his fascinating Bushranger. The minor key in which the whole character of Isabel Arlington is pitched suits Mrs Tree’s talent to a nicety, and I don’t mind owning that I was really moved at several points in the scenes between Isabel and Woodville in the last act. Mr Frederick Kerr and Miss Lily Hanbury played the comic lovers very brightly, and Mr Nutcombe Gould and Mr Charles Allan contributed clever character-sketches. Mr Fred Terry, as Lord Dewsbury, makes an unnecessarily thunderous entrance, marching on like the Statue in Don Giovanni; but he puts all due earnestness into a somewhat “sacrificed” part. Miss Gertrude Kingston’s part, also, is none of the best, but she does all that can be done with the cigarette-smoking Russian adventuress. How often, I wonder, has this useful actress played Madame Obnoskin under other aliases? Mr Holman Clark’s Professor Marrables is an excellent bit of character. The tone of placid detachment in which he remarks, “The soul?—Ah, yes, the soul!” is the most amusing thing in the whole play. We feel that the soul has not yet come within the ken of his microscope, but that, if it ever should, he will know how to deal with it. ___ Birmingham Daily Post (24 January, 1894 - Issue 11107) THE DRESSES IN THE “CHARLATAN.”
_____ In a Haymarket production, especially in a play of modern society life, the lady playgoer naturally looks for some marvels of stage millinery, and in the case of Mr. Buchanan’s “Charlatan” she is not disappointed. Three of the four acts take place in the drawing room of Wanborough Castle, which is arranged to form an effective background to beautiful gowns. A heavy portière of rich terra-cotta silk separates the room proper from a cleverly-painted vista of white-panelled room ending in a mullioned window. Old portraits hang on the walls. Oriental rugs, palms, softly-shaded lamps and candles, gleaming bronze statuettes, a tea-table with lace-bordered cloth and exquisite old silver and china, great bowls filled with roses, and a grand piano draped with peacock blue brocade, all carry out the idea of ancestral wealth, combined with cultured taste. The piano is introduced for more than merely ornamental purpose. Standing by it, in her picturesque gown of oyster white satin, with long loose front showing a full bodice of écru spotted muslin and a big sash of the same tied at the left side, Mrs. Beerbohm Tree sings in the deepening twilight Rubinstein’s plaintive setting of “The Asra” to the accompaniment of the Lady Carlotta, Miss Lily Hanbury, who, like Mrs. Tree, is an accomplished musician. In this pretty scene Miss Hanbury wears a simple frock of shot pink and biscuit silk dotted with mauve, with big sleeves tied with black velvet ribbon, a row of the same ribbon heading the three tiny hem frills. Miss Gertrude Kingston as Madame Obnoskin, the cigarette-loving theosophist, who aspires to be Countess of Wanborough, wears a gown of pale heliotrope cloth, with lace-edged petticoat and revers of violet satin. A yellow silk sash, sable collar and cuffs, and a richly-embroidered vest are in keeping with the wearer’s Oriental character. In the second act Mrs. Tree suggests a Gainsborough portrait in her trailing, clinging robe of white satin, bordered with silver and crystal embroidery and veiled with chiffon. The front and short puffed sleeves are of silver spangled chiffon. A sash of turquoise blue crape is arranged in bands round the full bodice, and is tied in a large bow on the left of the corsage, falling in long ends to the hem of the dress. A wreath of blue-green leaves is worn in the hair. In the same act Miss Hanbury looks her best in a gown of irridescent blue-gray moiré silk with short full skirt set in deep pleats at the back. The corsage has a deep berthe of cream point de Venise lace, and frills of the same fall from the short puffed sleeves. Miss Kingston’s gown of black silk is veiled with black crape, and has bands of jet embroidery forming perpendicular lines from the jet corsage. The short puffed sleeves and berthe of black velvet are arranged in Victorian style, being only saved from falling from the shoulders by bands of jet embroidery. In the sleep-walking scene in the quaint, tapestried, turret chamber Mrs. tree wears a graceful peignoir of creamy woollen, falling in long straight folds from a square-cut neckband. Huge voluminous sleeves hang loosely about the arms. In the last act Mrs. Tree appears in a gown of lemon yellow silk; a short plain skirt with seams outlined with jet. A long narrow sash of black crepe is tied round the waist, and falls at the back. The bodice is cut low round the neck, and has elbow sleeves, showing a chemisette and under sleeves of écru net. Some beautiful tambour embroidery is turned back on the bodice. The fastening of the bodice at the back is hidden beneath a series of tiny bows. Miss Hanbury wears a girlishly simple gown of cream delaine with heliotrope flowers. The skirt is trimmed with perpendicular bands of mauve ribbon reaching nearly to the waist. The bodice, of heliotrope silk, is almost entirely covered with écru point be Venise lace, only a small square of the silk showing at the neck. The sleeves consist of several puffs tied round with mauve ribbon. Very effective is colour is the gown worn in this act by Miss Gertrude Kingston. It is of tabac brown velvet. The short jacket bodice has slashes of yellow silk showing through its seams, and opens over a skirt of biscuit yellow silk. Bright crimson ribbons are intertwined with brown ribbons, and fall in long ends in front of the dress. A crimson ribbon is fastened with a diamond brooch under the turned-down collar of the shirt. ___ Birmingham Daily Post (25 January, 1894 - Issue 11108) A LADY’S CORRECTION.
To the EDITOR of the DAILY POST. Sir,—Will you permit me to point out to the gentleman who wrote the article on “The Dresses in ‘The Charlatan’” in to-day’s Post, that the word “millinery” is a term used exclusively of the making and trimming of ladies’ head gears. He says the lady playgoer naturally looks for some marvels of stage millinery, and is not disappointed. He then goes on to describe the dresses, not the millinery, of which as a matter of fact I do not suppose there was much, if any, on the stage. I do not make this correction in a carping spirit, but merely for the enlightenment of the superior sex. I have already cured one or two dramatic critics of the same fault.
January 24. ETHEL. ___ The Stage (25 January, 1894 - p.12) LONDON THEATRES. THE HAYMARKET. On Thursday evening, January 18, 1894, was produced a new four-act “play of modern life,” written by Robert Buchanan, entitled:— The Charlatan.
Mr. Buchanan’s new play is so absorbingly interesting, for the most part so deftly constructed, and, moreover, is so well written, that surprise need not be felt if it runs successfully for a long period. It must be owned that it is not a perfectly satisfying work, and that Mr. Buchanan has not attempted to enlighten or instruct those who may be attracted by the subject he has taken for his theme. Rather has he added mystery to mystery, but his practised stage craft has served him well, and he has ventured upon dangerous ground with some measure of success. Nothing more daring than the second act of The Charlatan has been witnessed on the stage, and it speaks volumes in praise of the dramatist’s deftness that this act should have created a profound sensation on Thursday, and hushed the house to painful silence, a silence only broken by a tumult of applause compelling the curtain to be many times raised, and the actors to appear and reappear before the delighted audience.
Philip Woodville is the charlatan of the play, and before he arrives upon the scene of the first act it is half understood how he will act. The Earl of Wanborough, an old gentleman, who falls a ready prey to the adventurer, has stopping with him in Wanborough Castle a certain Madame Obnoskin, whose sole aim is to deceive her weak-minded host, and work her way into his affections, with the object of money-making, or possibly of becoming his second wife. The Earl is a believer in Theosophy, and as Madame Obnoskin sets herself up as an exponent of that occult science, and is, moreover, a beautiful, soft-voiced woman, with attractive manner, considerable sympathy is rapidly engendered in the heart of the old man. Madame has played her cards well. Already has she, with sweet voice and cat-like action, gained her ground so far that she has nearly induced the Earl to call her Evangeline, the name she is known by in the world of spirits; but she wishes for a secure footing. At this point Philip Woodville, the Theosophist, makes his appearance. The cleverness of this introduction of the leading character in the play may be here pointed out. The Earl’s ward, Isabel Arlington, a sad-faced, quiet, but impressionable young girl, has been induced by her lover, Lord Dewsbury, to sing to the company assembled in the Earl’s drawing-room. With plaintive voice she relates in song the story of a dying slave, her voice dies away with a piteous wail, the singer being overcome; the room has darkened as the day declines, when quietly and unseen Philip Woodville has walked in. Recovering, Isabel turns from her position at the piano, and finds standing before her the mysterious stranger. She shrinks back in half-terror, for in Philip, the tall, dark-complexioned man, with piercing eyes, she recognises one she had met years before in India. There he had a strange power over her, and it was only by the exercise of her will that she tore herself away. Now she stands before him helpless. The situation is partially understood by her wealthy lover, Dewsbury—a hot-headed, outspoken man—and he instantly becomes suspicious. Philip, it appears, now bears a name different from that he had when he and Isabel first met. A relative had left him property on condition that he should alter his surname, and now he is simply Philip Woodville. It may readily be guessed that Woodville and Madame Obnoskin are confederates, though they act as strangers to each other in the presence of the Earl’s guests. Left together, the two soon reveal their plots. The Earl, anxious to convince his friends of the truthfulness of his faith in Theosophy and Spiritual Manifestation, has arranged that during the evening a dark séance shall be held, and now Philip and Madame Obnoskin arrange their plans for it. The woman eager to ensnare the Earl, the man madly desiring to entrap Isabel, for whom he has long entertained a base passion—what are they to do? The woman soon finds a way out of their difficulty. Isabel’s father, Colonel Arlington, a gallant soldier whose portrait hangs over the fireplace, is supposed to be dead. For months no news of him has come from India, and he has been given up as lost. Isabel, alone trusting and clinging to faint hope, still wavers, and the two determine to play upon the delicate nature of the girl by trickery. Philip has a cablegram from a trusty acquaintance, and from it learns that the soldier is alive—that at any moment he may start for England. Whatever is done must be done soon. The séance is held, and it is in this act, the second, that the dramatist has shown his skill. In obedience to the wishes of Philip, the room is to be darkened, and no one besides those present is to be admitted. They are all ready and waiting, when a servant enters with a telegram. With passionate outburst Philip reminds the Earl of his promise that they shall not be disturbed, and then violently pulls together the heavy velvet curtains that divide the room. Next he turns off the electric light, and soon the stage is in perfect darkness. A false move here and the play is in danger, but no false move is made by the dramatist. Soon Madame Obnoskin, in weird tones, describes a spectre who is, she says, standing near to Isabel’s chair. Asked to describe him, she gives the portrait of Isabel’s father. The highly sensitive girl with a moan calls upon her parent, and in an instant a vision of her father is seen on the curtains. Isabel is content; her father lives. The lights are turned on, and in the general confusion that follows the telegram is read. It is confirmatory of Philip’s declaration—the soldier lives, and is leaving for home. The third act takes place the same night in the turret-room of the castle, where Philip has his abode. The bedroom leading out of this is said to be haunted, and so it has been given to Philip. The charlatan is alone, pondering over the strange success of his trick, when the Earl enters to wish him good-night, and to thank him. Following him come Dewsbury, hot and defiant, and Darrell. The latter is half inclined to doubt the genuineness of the séance; the former simply denounces Philip as a liar and a scoundrel. It is nearly a matter of blows; but, thanks to Darrell, these are averted. Philip confesses that he knew Isabel before, and Dewsbury extracts from him a promise that he will not see her again “after to-night,” also that he (Philip) will quit the castle in the morning. Left alone again, Philip quickly bolts the doors. If he can only induce Isabel to visit him! He will try if he has any of the old power left in him. Going to the window, he spreads his hand out in the direction of Isabel’s room and uses his hypnotic influence. Whether he is successful or not is left unexplained. True it is that Isabel does come, but she is walking in her sleep, and a highly-wrought temperament like hers might easily bring about somnambulism without hypnotic aid. However, she enters the room, led in by Philip. He is horrified to find her asleep, and when presently the girl, still asleep, confesses her love for and faith in the man who has, as she thinks, restored to her a loved father, the would-be seducer is disarmed. The complete innocence and trust of the girl have subdued him, and his passionate lust gives way to a feeling of wonder and amazement. Soon he discovers the danger of the situation. Isabel must not be seen in his room. The man’s whole nature has changed. Before, he would ruin her body and soul; now, he will not let even her name be sullied. If she returns asleep, the cold air may awaken her, or she may be seen. He will first awaken her, and then confess the baseness of his desire and ask her pardon. When Isabel does awaken, she screams for help, and is horrified with the indelicacy of her position. With fevered haste, Philip tells her all, and implores her forgiveness. He does not ask in vain. At this juncture knocking is heard at the door. With haste Philip manages to open another door little used, and Isabel escapes. With “Thank God” on his lips, Philip returns to admit the new visitor as the curtain descends. The last act is not satisfactory, though it is perhaps the only possible ending to this play. Having confessed his fraud and sin to Isabel, Philip also confesses to the Earl. Dewsbury, like a prig, at once doubts Isabel, and declares he will set her free. Then Madame Obnoskin, finding the game up, denounces Isabel. Dewsbury cannot marry her because she is not worthy of him. He little knows where she was last night—in Philip Woodville’s room. She, Madame Obnoskin knew—she saw her; it was she who knocked at the door, and heard Isabel’s voice. Isabel, calmer and collected now, confesses all; tells how she innocently walked in her sleep, and of Philip’s behaviour to her. Dewsbury will not believe her innocent, and quits the room. The old Earl, with kindly gesture, assures her of his belief in all she has said, and presently Philip and Isabel are alone. The broken-down charlatan slowly turns to go, and in answer to Isabel says he will return to his old haunts, where, alone with nature and God, he will endeavour to lead a better and a nobler life. The girl takes a chain and locket from her neck. They were given to her by her mother, and always made her think of her who has long been dead. She begs that Philip will take them with him, and then with a half-smothered sob she adds “and bring it back to me,” and so Philip departs, and the play is ended with sufficient indication that in the near future the lovers will be re-united when Philip has worked out his redemption. It is curiously left unexplained how the trickery of the dark séance was brought about, for it is impossible to think that any elaborate apparatus could in a few moments have been brought into action in a modern drawing-room without detection following. The character of Woodville is somewhat contradictory, and it is not quite easy to understand why in the Turret-room scene he should awaken Isabel merely to confess his sin. That the girl should retain love for him after his declaration concerning his lust is difficult to believe. However, as pointed out, The Charlatan is most cleverly interesting, and, after all, the blots upon it are not of very great moment to an ordinary audience.
Admirably made up as Philip, a Eurasian, Mr. Tree gave fine point to his performance, and brought out all its characteristics with unerring fidelity and artistic skill. He has exactly caught the mystic tone imparted to the Spiritualist, and his presence at all times lent a curious feeling of mystery to the play, so needful to its complete success. In the Turret scene Mr. Tree was especially good, giving the passionate outburst of Philip with great power. The last act, too, found Mr. Tree thoroughly in touch with the situation, and as he quitted the scene a feeling of sadness took possession of the onlooker. It is difficult to gain sympathy for Philip, but Mr. tree succeeded in so doing to a great extent. The Lord Dewsbury of Mr. Fred Terry was a capital foil to Mr. Tree’s Philip. The latter calm, cool, and polished, while Dewsbury, as played by Mr. Terry, was hot and impetuous. Mr. Nutcombe Gould gave a pleasant and agreeable portrait of the old Earl, adding in the last act a note of pathos admirable for its truthfulness. Mr. C. Allan as a rather selfishly-inclined Dean was quite good, and Messrs. Hay and Montagu as servants acted as if to the manner born. A quaint and artistic picture of an old scientific professor was contributed by Mr. Holman Clark, who may be congratulated upon as perfect a sketch of character as the stage has seen for many years. Darrell, a young gentleman first cousin to the lover in Judah, with a touch of the young swell in Morocco Bound, and a few Oscar Wilde sayings thrown in, was well played by Mr. Frederick Kerr, who is particularly happy in this particular line of character. A delightfully fresh and healthy-minded girl, Lady Carlotta, was charmingly portrayed by Miss Lily Hanbury, who looked particularly handsome, and whose bright and cheerful manner soon gained the admiration of the house. Mrs. E. H. Brooke made the most of the few lines she had to speak as the Dean’s wife, and Miss Irene Vanbrugh as a Girton girl with much learning fully utilised her opportunities. Miss Gertrude Kingston showed decided improvement in style as Madame Obnoskin—and if a trifle too slow in utterance was quite in the picture, and of much value to the performance. It would be difficult to find anyone better able to play Isabel than Mrs. Tree—singing with infinite tenderness and grace, speaking her lines with great effect, and throughout the play securing the entire sympathies of her audience.
At the conclusion of the play the author was called for and warmly applauded. Then, in answer to persistent demands for “speech,” Mr. Tree, gracefully alluding to a French proverb, said he did not like to speak about his future plans before the author of his present play, but it was, he thought, an “open secret” that his next production would be The Talisman, a German play, which he hoped would prove acceptable. ___ The Graphic (27 January, 1894 - Issue 1261) “The Charlatan” BY W. MOY THOMAS THE romantic criminal hero who fills so large a space in the earlier works of Lord Lytton and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth seemed but the other day to have gone entirely out of fashion, and even to have fallen hopelessly under the ban of the official Licenser of Plays. Old modes, however, are apt to come back, and thanks to Mr. Beerbohm Tree and the dramatists who are ready to take the measure of that popular actor and manager for a new part, this personage is now re-established on the London stage in an even more subtle and seductive form than of yore. He is known, moreover, to be in especial favour with the ladies among the audiences at the HAYMARKET, who are believed to extend to his crimes a considerable measure of condonation in consideration of his elegant exterior, his polished manners, his impressive self-assurance, and his eye like Mars, to threaten and command.
Captain Swift, though he refrained from pulling the trigger when he presented the pistol at the head of Mr. Willing and robbed that forgiving Australian of a valuable horse, could hardly have achieved his notoriety as a bushranger without placing one or two murders to his account; but he had the grace in the end to recognise the inconveniences of his rather complex antecedents by blowing out his own brains. Philip Woodville, the hero of Mr. Buchanan’s new play, is, on the contrary, clearly marked out at the fall of the curtain to be the future husband of the beautiful and innocent Isabel Arlington whom he has, by subtle arts and contrivances won away from her allegiance as the betrothed of her cousin Lord Dewsbury. Yet this mysterious Eurasian, hypnotist, and avowed “Charlatan” has—not in a remote, Australian past, but before the eyes and ears of the audience, been guilty of offences which, if less grave than assassination in the view of our criminal code, are certainly more odious in the eyes of right feeling persons. In London he has met Isabel, niece and ward of the Earl of Wanborough, at whose too hospitable Castle the action passes; and fascinated by her person and manners, he has conceived a peculiarly cowardly and cunning plot to bring her into his power. His first step is to gain admission to the Castle, which he does by virtue of the Earl’s weakness for the now fashionable pastimes of Theosophy and Hypnotism. Philip is an adept in theosophical and hypnotic doctrines and practices.He has already a secret accomplice in the house in the person of Madame Obnoskin, who aims at inveigling the Earl, a widower, into her toils, and having made the discovery that Isabel is grieving about the disappearance of her father in Thibet, he contrives, by some unexplained means, to call up a sort of vision of the missing officer at a dark séance in the drawing-room of the Castle. As Philip has previously assured Isabel that her father lives, and the lights are no sooner turned up than a telegram is opened confirming his assurance, the telepathic gift of the mysterious Eurasian is supposed to be demonstrated by these proceedings, though Philip has, in fact, only availed himself of information privately received by him. Such arts are obviously calculated to work on the feelings and imagination of the affectionate daughter, whom Mrs. Tree impersonates with equal refinement, tenderness, and pathos; but they have little to do with the culminating act of the Eurasian’s perfidy. This consists in exercising his supposed hypnotic powers in such wise that Isabel is constrained to arise from her bed, and clothed only in her night-gown, to pay a visit to her unscrupulous admirer at midnight in the lonely “turret room” of the castle. Here, while still in her somnolent condition, she makes avowal of her love for the insinuating Eurasian; but she is supposed to be rescued from her compromising and perilous position by Philip’s sudden revulsion of feeling, under the influence of which he arouses her and makes full confession of his atrocious scheme. This and his subsequent acknowledgment made in the presence of the Earl and his guests are the elements whose redeeming quality is assumed to fit Philip to become one day the husband of the sweet and pure-minded Isabel, who, it is true, is nothing loth to overlook his transgressions. The shabby imposture by which Claude Melnotte entrapped the proud Pauline into a marriage, however, really shows fair beside the methods and the objects of Mr. Buchanan’s Eurasian, who has not even the excuse to plead of wounded pride. His final forbearance must be taken with some abatement when it is considered that persistence would inevitably have brought him within the folds of the criminal law.
Not the least offensive part of his machinations is reckless disregard for the young lady’s reputation. That there was risk of her being seen on her way to and from the turret room must have been known to him, and, as a fact, she had been detected by the watchful eyes of Madame Obnoskin, who, in vexation at the failure of her own schemes, proclaims the compromising fact the next morning before the entire household. It might be thought hard to make a hero out of Philip Woodville; but the subtle charm of Mr. Tree’s acting counts for much, and the author has ingeniously contrived to maintain the key of mystery which leaves the spectator with little inclination for analysing motives or subjecting the story to test of common sense. This is the more remarkable by reason of the prominence which he has nevertheless given to some amusing sketches of character conceived in a lighter vein which are very cleverly played by Mr. Fred Kerr, Miss Lily Hanbury, Mr. Allan, Mr. Holman Clark, Miss Irene Vanbrugh, and Mrs. E. H. Brooke. The stately courtesy of Mr. Nutcombe Gould’s portrait of the Earl of Wanborough has a charm of its own; but the elderly nobleman’s fatuous gullibility necessarily detracts from our respect for him. Mr. Fred Terry, as Lord Dewsbury, labours under a somewhat similar difficulty arising from the circumstance that the plan of the story requires that, while he is indulging in impotent threats and remonstrances, his rival, Philip Woodville, is constantly inflicting upon him bitter humiliations. |
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