THEATRE REVIEWS

14. Constance (1884)

Constance
by Robert Buchanan and Harriett Jay*
New York: Wallack’s Theatre. 11 November to 25 November, 1884.

*The source of this play is open to question. Buchanan had gone to America with a play, A Hero in Spite of Himself, intended for the Union Square Theatre managed by Messrs. Shook and Collier. However they rejected the play and Buchanan then came up with Constance for Wallack’s Theatre. Judging by the review in the Brooklyn Eagle (16/11/84), it is a concoction from several sources and in a letter to the New-York Daily Tribune (22/11/84) Buchanan admits taking “the central situation employed by Leon Gozlau, by Sardou and finally by myself”.  However, a letter from Kate Munroe (presumably the actress who had recently appeared in Bachelors at the Haymarket) in The Era (6/12/84) draws a parallel with the Harriett Jay novel, A Marriage of Convenience which was serialised in the weekly magazine, The Lady’s Pictorial: A Newspaper for the Home from 12 July to 29 November, 1884. An article in The Omaha Daily Bee (25/11/84) actually refers to Harriett Jay writing the final chapters of the novel for the magazine. A case then of which came first, was the play based on the novel, or the novel on the play? Either way, it seems appropriate to grant Miss Jay the extra credit.
As far as I know Constance never toured America and was never performed in England.

The New York Times (19 October, 1884)

THE ACTOR AND THE PLAY

THE PLOT OF MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN’S NEW WORK.

     It is not yet decided what to call the new play which Mr. Wallack has purchased from Mr. Robert Buchanan, although it has been determined, as already foreshadowed in THE TIMES, to bring the piece out as the next production at Mr. Wallack’s theatre. The play itself appears to contain the elements of quite unusual strength. There is nothing conspicuously new in the story, but the plot seems to be very well constructed, and the indications are that the play is the best piece of dramatic work which has yet come from Mr. Buchanan’s pen. The story as told yesterday by Mr. Arthur Wallack is closely woven and interesting. The villain, who is one of the chief characters in the play, is a Spanish nobleman. Before the action of the piece begins he has eloped with the wife of another man, and having tired of her in due course has cast her aside and come to live in England. Here he has an opportunity to contract an advantageous marriage with a young girl whose grandmother is ambitious for an alliance with a family of noble lineage. The girl herself loves a young army surgeon, who loves her in return, and this affection is the only bar to the proposed marriage between herself and the Duke. The grandmother, who is not conspicuously soft-hearted where her own wishes are concerned, tells the girl that the father of the young man with whom she is in love was the direct cause of her mother’s death, and that to marry into that particular family would consequently be a crime against the memory she holds dear. Meanwhile the old woman has exercised her influence to the extent of getting the young surgeon ordered away to the Cape, where his regiment is stationed, and the coast is thus left clear for the Duke to prosecute his suit. Always near the Duke in some capacity or other, but at this time as his valet, is the husband of the woman he has ruined. This man is waiting in patience for a complete revenge, and he is satisfied to put up with any hardship and to endure any sacrifice that will aid him in ruining and bringing to his death the object of his hatred. The Duke succeeds in securing the hand of the young girl, who is moved through grief at what her aged relative has told her to accede to that person’s wishes in regard to an exalted marriage. In a short time the Spaniard grows weary of his young wife and begins to seek some method of so compromising her that he may have some reasonable, or at least plausible, excuse for putting her aside. The avenging valet, who divines his purpose, is moved partly by hatred for his supposititious master and partly by kindliness to the wife, who is a sweet and lovable woman, to thwart this design. The Duke undertakes a scheme to get his wife into questionable surroundings by offering to take her to a certain ball, then being ostensibly called away, and sending her a message to go without him. She sends to the Spanish Embassy to secure the escort of her husband’s friend, and while the bearer of her message is gone upon this errand her former lover enters her apartment. He has been wounded in an African engagement and sent home for purposes of recuperation. Not knowing the heroine has been married in his absence, he finds his way to her boudoir and in an impassioned scene pours out his love for her. She finally has the strength to check him, although she discovers the deception that has been practiced upon her. When she tells him that she has become the wife of another the shock is so great that his wound breaks out afresh, and he falls fainting to the floor as the valet rushes upon the scene to foretell the unexpected coming of the Duke. Anxious to save the innocent wife, he induces her to retire, and she leaves the stage as the Duke comes in. He finds what he supposes is the dead body of a man in his wife’s boudoir, and he orders his valet to fling it into the street as the curtain descends. It goes up again almost immediately, showing what appears to be the lover’s body lying on the sofa covered over with a rug. The Duchess is called in and accused of infidelity by her husband. There is a bitter scene between them, filled with denunciation on his part and denial upon hers, and upon their parting the act ends. The valet, in place of obeying the orders imposed upon him, has taken the unconscious lover to the house of a physician who figures in the play, and he is there restored to life and prospective strength. In the last act, the wife has proceeded to a convent in Brittany for the purpose of entering its doors for the rest of her life. The husband is there in pursuit of her, and the avenging valet is also on the ground. If the Duke does not recover his wife he is ruined, and in this complication the wronged husband of the woman he seduced years ago determines at last to strike. After a number of scenes between the various characters, working up to the final climax, the whilom valet declares his rightful identity and demands the satisfaction of mortal combat. He has brought the Duke’s dueling pistols with him, and proposes an immediate settlement of their account. The Duke at first refuses, but finally, stung with the taunts and insults of his adversary, he agrees to fight, and is shot dead. His wife, the young lover, and the other characters are on the stage. The Duchess, standing beneath the convent cross, sends a prayer to heaven for the forgiveness of the man who has so wronged her, and upon this picture the piece comes to an end, leaving an intimation that the principal personages will come together in the future. The underplot lies between the physician who restores the hero to health and a young girl who is full of life and animal spirits, and who has been designed by her friends for a convent career, which is precisely opposite to her inclinations. The physician is a general philanthropist who unwinds the tangled skein of the various characters and ultimately weds the spirited young lady. These two personages furnish the lighter portions of the piece, and form an entertaining contrast to the sombre incidents I have related. This play will be placed in rehearsal on Wednesday, and will be carefully prepared for production three weeks hence. Mr. Tearle, Miss Coghlan, and Mme. Ponisi, together with two other important players not yet decided upon, will be seen in this production. Mr. Goatcher is painting the scenery, of which there are two very pretty exterior sets, the sketches now being complete.

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 The New York Times (12 November, 1884)

AMUSEMENTS.

WALLACK’S THEATRE.

     Wallack’s Theatre was filled last evening with what is known among theatregoers as a Wallack audience; the wealth, intellect, fashion, and wit of the metropolis were represented in the boxes and stalls. The house wore a cheery aspect, and the people gossiped together during the waits—which were long enough to admit of extended conversation—with the freedom of old friends. The play was “Constance,” a romantic drama, written by Mr. Robert Buchanan. It was provided with a beautiful setting; in the outdoor scenes the painters had simulated nature in her happiest mood, and for the interiors the upholsterer’s art in its most attractive forms had been called into use, while the ladies of the play wore robes which were marvels of millinery. Several popular members of Mr. Wallack’s company came forward upon this stage for the first time in many months, including Miss Coghlan, Mr. Tearle, Mr. Kelcey, and Mr. Howson, and a new-comer, Mr. Edward J. Henley, made his first appearance with distinguished success. It is a pleasant task to write of a stage event in which there is so much to praise.
     In “Constance” Mr. Buchanan has unfolded a sorrowful and strange story of blighted love and vindictiveness. A Spanish Duke of unbounded wealth and unrelieved wickedness seeks the hand of a young girl; an aged relative of the girl, ambitious to secure such a desirable alliance for the family, poisons her mind against her cousin, who is also her lover, so that the girl weds the Duke, while the lover marches off to the war. All this is, of course, conventional and familiar enough, but, as may be premised, Mr. Buchanan has not confined himself in the development of his plot to the beaten paths of the drama. The wicked Duke has a factotum, a valet, a secretary, who is none other than the husband of a woman who fell a victim to the nobleman’s wiles during an earlier period of his career. This person’s object in life is to ruin the Duke and then gloat over his misery. To this end he exerts himself to bring together the unhappy Duchess and her former lover, who has won honors on the battlefield and succeeded to a peerage. Before harm is done, however, the heart of the seeker for vengeance is touched by the misery of his victims, and he exerts himself to do what he can to aid them. He succeeds nobly, for he reveals his identity to the Duke and then kills him in a face to face combat, leaving Constance and her lover free to marry. The strongest scenes in the play are in the last half of it, and the chief interest centres in a passionate dialogue between Constance and her lover in the lady’s boudoir, in a subsequent encounter with the Duke, and the last scene, where an interview between that conscienceless noble and his injured wife is interrupted by the Secretary, who then assumes the rôle of Nemesis. The curtain did not fall until half an hour before midnight, though, as we have intimated, the fault lay in the length of the entr’acte, rather than in an excess of verbiage in the play. Mr. Buchanan’s drama was well received, although it is too early yet to claim a popular success for it. An ingenious device in Act III, relating to the disposition of the body of a man supposed to be dead, evidently produced the effect desired for it. In a note upon the house bill the author says that this idea is taken from a play by Leon Gozlan. What Mr. Buchanan’s play needs most is a judicious compression of the language in some of the scenes, where at times the action seems to lag notwithstanding the strength of the situation. “Constance” is certainly not a great play, either in its language or its story; it does not deal with characters that may be accepted as types of humanity, nor does it convey a moral lesson of any sort; but it does not lack effectiveness, and it furnishes a capital opportunity to some of Mr. Wallack’s actors. Miss Coghlan as Constance, Mr. Tearle as the Secretary, Mr. Kelcey as the lover, were all seen to good advantage. Mr. Howson and Miss Helen Russell furnished a light vein of comedy. Mme. Ponisi was a trifle monotonous, but still forcible and dignified as the aged relative who causes the mischief. But Mr. Henley’s impersonation of the Duke d’Azeglio was the most notable work of the evening. It was a striking if not agreable portrayal of austerity mingled with villainy—a man of high breeding, polished manners and a cruel heart. This actor certainly deserved the demonstration made in his favor.

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The Sun (New York) (12 November, 1884 - p.3)

AMUSEMENTS.
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Wallack’s Theatre.

     “Constance,” a new play by Mr. Robert Buchanan, was produced last evening at Wallack’s Theatre before a large audience of the usual first night character. Many well-known people were present, and they sat out the occurrence with great amiability.
     The piece is a coarse and commonplace melodrama, of poor literary fibre and shallow conception. How it came to be put upon the boards of Wallack’s Theatre is a mystery upon which not all the previous eccentricities of that house can throw any light. Never have fine appointments and the services of competent artists been wasted there upon as bad a drama. It is not worth considering.
     None of Mr. Wallack’s people has a chance in it. It is one of those dismal and unrelieved occasions of the stage when the perversion of good actors to wholly unfit and unaccustomed functions fails even to provoke merriment. Brilliant as the mounting was, and strenuous as were the efforts of the company, it was a dreary spectacle.

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New-York Daily Tribune (13 November, 1884 - p.4)

THE DRAMA—MUSIC.
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“CONSTANCE” AT WALLACK’S.

     The formal opening of the regular season at Wallack’s, the return of Mr. Wallack’s dramatic company to its usual home, and the production of a new piece by a distinguished author, were united elements of attraction, Tuesday night, at the representative theatre of the city. They drew together a large and brilliant assemblage—the house being crowded to its utmost capacity—and they gave much pleasure to many persons. Miss Rose Coghlan has never looked lovelier on the stage than she did as the heroine of this new play, and there were moments when her acting was thrilled with genuine passion and guided by a fine instinct of dramatic form and effect. Mr. Edward J. Henley, a new actor here, made his first appearance, and impressed his audience with a keen sense of intellectual force and artistic skill. Two scenic pictures of remarkable beauty, painted by Mr. Goatcher, and one by Mr. Dayton, aroused hearty admiration. It would be delightful but inaccurate to add that the public pleasure, thus inspired, was entirely unmitigated. Mr. Robert Buchanan’s new play contains many beauties: but these are often of a literary rather than a dramatic character, and hence the piece moved slowly and at times became monotonous. “Constance” may be described as a colloquial story, cut into four sections and spoken by ten interlocutors. It contains two dramatic situations of a powerful and splendid character. A cruel and revengeful husband, seeking to entrap his wife, has contrived a meeting between herself and a former lover, in her own boudoir, at night; and this lover, a soldier, but recently wounded in battle, is overcome by emotion, and faints, and apparently dies, in her presence. The husband subsequently compels the disclosure of her complicity in the interview by a cold-blooded stratagem—the pretence, namely, that the dead body, which really he has had conveyed away, is still beneath a cloak upon her couch. These situations are fraught with deep and true feeling, and here the author has shown a correct and intimate knowledge of human nature and of the passion of love. As to the rest of the play it may be remarked that it largely consists of dialogue and narrative with reference to things which have been done, and things which are about to be done. Its persons, furthermore, frequently act from inadequate motives, and in an irrational manner. The heroine instantly believes a falsehood against her lover, in the first act, simply because it is told, and as instantly disbelieves it in the second act simply because it is contradicted. The repudiation of her lover by Constance is groundless and most unlike a woman, and her subsequent marriage with a man whom she detests is monstrous in nature and is not shown to be inevitable in the dramatic art of the play. A certain avenger who pervades the piece may be personally picturesque, but his conduct is preposterous and his long-delayed vengeance, both in itself and in its means, is observed with a smile. Mr. Osmond Tearle acted this part. The new play is invested with beautiful surroundings and fraught with great sincerity of feeling, it concerns a theme of vital interest, and it is acted well.
     The observant spectator of it, however, can scarcely avoid questioning its construction. Why should Constance at once believe a story prejudicial toward a man she loves? Why should she not ask him to explain it, and accept his explanation? Why should she give him up,—considering what the story is,—even if she believes it? How does it happen that she has lived so long in her grandmother’s company, without having any just perception of that relative’s wicked treachery of character? Why should she marry the rich Duke, whom she almost loathes, simply because he has asked her to do so? Why should the Duke contrive a snare to bring the appearance of dishonor on his own wife? Why should the snare be allowed to succeed, when a few natural words of explanation would have defeated its baleful purpose? Why should the Corsican brother from Venezuela protract his pursuit of vengeance on the wicked Duke and enact Bertuccio in that nobleman’s family? Are not the incidents often impossible of occurrence, and, throughout the piece, is there not a painful straining after melodramatic points? Will a woman—young, pure, free, rich, noble, good—with true and passionate love in her heart for one man, turn aside from him and become the wife of another? Why should the lover, when repelled and ruthlessly and cruelly cast away by the woman he adores, come back to her again? Why should his friend allow him to remain in ignorance of the fact that she is married? Why does he wear his arm in a sling when his wound is in his body? Why should the wicked grandmother be forgiven by Constance simply because she says she is sorry for her crimes? Why does the wicked Duke engage the Venezuela artist in his service, instead of handing him over to the servants and the horse-pond? Why does he not at once fight a duel with the offensive suitor of his wife, after the encounter in the second act? Of course it can be said—and with truth—that stranger things happen, in the lives of men and women, where love is implicated, than the strangest things that ever were supposed to happen in a story. Still, the work of art should be invulnerable as to probability.
     Once the situation has been reached (and it is not reached till the third act) Mr. Buchanan’s play becomes vital, exciting and impressive. The meeting between the lovers—one married, the other free—the man’s reckless rage against the cruelty of opposing circumstances, and his defiant readiness to dare any danger and meet any fate—the woman’s struggle between a sense of duty and the passionate impulse of her heart—the wild, inconsequent, almost meaningless talk—the ultimate victory of passion over reason and prudence—the collapse and apparent death of the wounded man—the desperation of the woman—the midnight meeting of husband and wife, with its awful suggestiveness and that hateful condition existent when a man and woman averse to each other must nevertheless live together and be each subjected to the furtive watchfulness of the other—the ruse by which the husband compels the wife to avow her secret—all this is contrived and expressed in an admirable manner, except that its display takes too much time, and the action becomes limp by being protracted. Compression here would be of great service to the effect of the play. And if, after that, the climax of the wicked Duke’s fate, at the hands of the Avenger from Venezuela, could be made more dramatic, brilliant and impressive, by being invested with importance, and being actually shown in stead of being mentioned, the piece would acquire greater strength and better finish. In drama, surely, the first thing to be considered is the eye—not the ear. The Duke’s ruse to deceive his wife is also made to deceive the audience—which is not dramatic art. The midnight removal of the dead body and the preparation of the ruse is the real action. A dramatist ought, surely, never to deal with times “supposed to have elapsed” and events “supposed to have occurred.” The dramatic fact that should engross a spectator’s attention is not the unexpected absence of the body from the couch where it has just been seen, but the acting of the woman when she is overwhelmed by the sudden and terrible surprise. It must be admitted, however, that this violent expedient had a sufficiently startling effect.
     This is one of the occasions when the journalist must resist that fiendish propensity which prompts the recital of the incidents of a plot. The story of “Constance,” if written out in Mr. Buchanan’s best manner, would be very good. But it may happen, and often does happen, that things which are very good when read do not seem as good when seen. This marks the distinction between the literary and the dramatic method. “Constance” contains splendid material for a drama, but as a drama it is deficient in the electricity of action.

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Brooklyn Eagle (16 November, 1884 - p.2)

     MR. LESTER WALLACK opened the regular season at his theater with a “new” play, by Robert Buchanan, called “Constance.” The central situation of the play is taken from that master playwriter of France, Sardou. The plot is from one of the plays of the late Leon Gozlan, and various other parts are familiar to old theater goers who have seen Augustine Daly’s adaptation of “Maison Neuve” and a play which had quite a run here some years ago under the name of “The White Cockade.” Most of the dialogue is so old that it might have been taken for any of the trite standard English melodramas and the characters are all conventional. With these trifling exceptions “Constance” is original with Mr. Buchanan. At any rate its performance served to bring out the most distinguished first night audience of the season, and, as the play was put on in the most sumptuous and lavish style, it is pictorially quite a go. The best applause of the evening was for the scene painter, who kindly came out and bowed several times during the first three acts. The action of the play was stopped, and the actors stood about like mummies while this robust, bald and rather pushing person strode forth to received the plaudits of the multitude. I am sorry to say that the multitude consisted of a claque stowed away judiciously in the rear of the house. In fact, it became so noisy at last tat it was roundly hissed by the audience, and from that time on the scene painter was invisible. A new member of Mr. Wallack’s company—his name is Henly—did the only praiseworthy work among the men. He is not a great actor, but is a very conscientious one, and played the part of a Spanish duke very intelligently. This man, by the way, came over with the troop of British blondes who made such a disastrous failure at the Park Theater a month or so ago. From a British blonde at the Park to a Spanish duke at Wallack’s is quite a jump. Mr. Osmond Tearle, who is a red faced, mild eyed and far from romantic looking Englishman off the stage, stepped from behind the scenes made up as a Brazilian adventurer. The effect was startling. Mr. Tearle wore an extraordinary black mustache, his customary light eyebrows and a wild black wig. Above his forehead Mr. Tearle looked very much disordered, very unpoetical and very unhappy. That section of his face between his wig and his upper lip was mild, beneficent and sunny as an English May day. The lower section of his face, which was decorated by the black mustache, looked villainous and deep. The ensemble was rather curious. Mr. Tearle’s duties at Wallack’s Theater seem to be to kill Miss Coghlan’s cruel husbands. He did it this time with his usual finish and dispatch. Of the women in the cast, Miss Rose Coghlan is the only one who was at all successful. In the third act of the play, the scene which is taken from Sardou, there is a chance for a bit of strong and heroic acting; it brought out all of the powers of Mr. Wallack’s leading lady. When there is a chance for acting of this sort Miss Coghlan shows the metal of which she is made. She has grown considerably slighter since her trip to Europe and now has the figure of a girl. Her costumes were simply gorgeous. It is a pity that she has so few opportunities for heroic acting in the namby pamby plays produced at Wallack’s. What struck the audience most forcibly at the performance of this play was the entire artificiality of the actors. There was a garden scene in the first act, and the actors walked in one after the other, doffed their hats in response to the applause of the audience, doffed them when they addressed their sweethearts, doffed them when spoken to, and then took them off with an angular motion when mentioning the name of the Divinity. To see Mr. Kelcey make an appeal to his Creator, with one arm raised on high while he tipped his hat with the other hand as though acknowledging the salute of some girl on the other side of the stage, was not a solemn spectacle. The men all wore very new clothes, spoke with extraordinary deliberation, and proved that they were a lot of very common place actors in an extremely bad play. Mr. Buchanan, the “author” of the play, sat in a proscenium box ready to receive the calls for the author. He was not called. His sister in law, Harriet Jay, sat with him. She is very tall, blonde, and has rather sharp features. For some extraordinary reason the audience thought she was Ellen Terry, and the play was forgotten during the half hour following her arrival, while they gazed at her. She shielded her face with a huge white fan, so that people were a long while finding out that it was not Miss Terry.

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