THEATRE REVIEWS

23. That Doctor Cupid (1889)

That Doctor Cupid
by Robert Buchanan.
London: Vaudeville Theatre. 14 January, 1889 (matinée).
London: Vaudeville Theatre. 17 January to 20 June, 1889 (151st performance).

[Programme for That Doctor Cupid at the Vaudeville Theatre, 10 April, 1889.]

The Era (1 December, 1888 - Issue 2619)

     MR BUCHANAN has read his new comedy to the Vaudeville company, and it will be put in rehearsal at once to follow Joseph’s Sweetheart. The subject is mainly original; the period chosen is about 1810, and the scene lies in Cambridge University and in Bath. The costumes will reproduce very accurately and amusingly the dresses worn by our grandfathers and grandmothers. Mr Thomas Thorne and the full Vaudeville company will appear, and Miss Winifred Emery will join to play the heroine.

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The Times (15 January, 1889 - p.7)

VAUDEVILLE THEATRE.

     The Faust legend has employed many pens and has been adapted to the stage in many forms, of which the most successful have been the purely burlesque. Mr. Irving’s Faust was not so much an adaptation as a reproduction of the dramatic elements of Goethe’s poem, with all its diablerie and other supernatural effects; but even that play was more dependent upon stage carpentry than any of its fellows at the Lyceum. Of the difficulties attending a dramatic adaptation, properly so-called, of the Faust legend, a more cogent example was furnished a few years ago by Mr. Herman Merivale’s play, The Cynic, in which a modern Faust and Mephistopheles figured in London society, the Satanic personage being a certain foreign gentleman of Iago-like propensities, named Count Lestrange. Despite its clever writing, The Cynic failed to win popularity, and pointed clearly to the inadvisability of mixing up any suggestion of the supernatural with the ordinary affairs of human life, so far as the stage is concerned. With the results of this and kindred experiments before his eyes, Mr. Robert Buchanan, writing for the Vaudeville Theatre, has not hesitated to revert once more to “Faust” for inspiration, “Faust” being unquestionably the basis of the “new and fantastic comedy in three acts,” entitled That Doctor Cupid, which was tentatively produced by Mr. Thomas Thorne and his company yesterday afternoon. We say the “basis” only, for between “Faust” and That Doctor Cupid there is but little superficial resemblance. The supernatural personage called forth in Mr. Buchanan’s comedy is not Mephistopheles, but Cupid—Cupid no longer the winged little cherub of the ancients, but the god of love grown old and rheumatic, although still provided with his bow and arrow as an ornamental pendant to his watch chain. At the same time this novel character may very fairly be described as a benevolent Mephistopheles; in the functions assigned to him in the play there is certainly a great deal that recalls his Satanic prototype.
     Mr. Buchanan fixes the period of his story in the beginning of the present century, and his hero, Harry Racket, when we first make his acquaintance, is a student at Cambridge. Harry Racket is in difficulties, his irascible uncle, Sir Timothy, hearing of his idleness and frivolity, has cut him off with a shilling, and he is consequently unable to marry his pretty cousin, Kate Constant, with whom he is in love and who is an heiress. In these distressing circumstances he anathematizes some old curios that have come into his possession, and one of them, a bottle containing what seems to him to be an indiarubber doll, he flings into the fireplace. The stage suddenly darkens, there is a peal of thunder, and a moment after Dr. Cupid, in the person of Mr. Thomas Thorne, is discovered squatting in the fireplace, from which, with a smiling good-natured face, he presently emerges to stretch his aching limbs, and to inquire of the astonished student what he can do for him. A few words of explanation put Harry Racket at his ease. Cupid explains that he has been shut up in the bottle by magic arts from the time of Queen Elizabeth, and that he is now at the service of his liberator in affairs of the heart. The youth speedily puts his strange visitor au courant of the situation. Cupid, who assumes the position of tutor to the young man, with the style and title of doctor, immediately suggests an aerial journey to Bath, where Sir Timothy and Miss Constant then are, and the new Faust and Mephistopheles begin their flight by a leap into space from the window sill. This is the end of the first act; the remainder of the story is concerned with the adventures of Dr. Cupid and his protégé at the fashionable resort of the day, where we may say at once the various personages, after a game of cross purposes, are reconciled to each other and made happy in their several ways. Dr. Cupid commits the blunder of making all the beauties of Bath become enamoured of his hero, and this estranges Kate Constant from her lover, besides setting other couples by the ears; but the evil is easily remedied, inasmuch as the benignant god has only to pretend to launch an arrow from an imaginary bow at any given couple in order to make them fall into each other’s arms. Mr. Frank Gillmore plays Harry Racket with the fire and spirit of a genuine hero of old comedy; as the testy Sir Timothy with a gouty leg, Mr. Frederick Thorne acts up to the same classical standard; and Miss Winifred Emery as the lovable Kate, Mr. Cyril Maude and Miss Marion Lea as a couple of lovers, Mr. Scott Buist as an aristocratic beau, and other members of the company make a brave show in the high-collared, cut-away coats, and ruffles, and the high-waisted frocks of the period. The piece is admirably acted indeed upon the lines of old comedy, so far as the general members of the company are concerned, none of them, except the hero, being supposed to be aware of the supernatural character of the strangely frivolous doctor. In particular, Mr. Cyril Maude and Miss Marion Lea may be commended for the spirit and piquancy of their performance, the one as a bashful and stuttering dandy, the other as a coquettish young widow.
     Profiting by the errors of some of his predecessors, the author has taken care not to give too serious an aspect to his story, and in this he is cleverly seconded by Mr. Thomas Thorne, who, whenever the action seems about to rise into the region of comedy, brings it back to the level of farce with his amusing but impossible antics as an elderly Cupid; it is as a farce, consequently, that the piece must be judged. On this lower range the extravagance of the action becomes theoretically acceptable, although it may not be entirely satisfactory to those who look for that genuine humour of which Mr. Thomas Thorne is often so happy an exponent. The difficulties of the theme, regarded from any point of view, are considerable, not the least of them being the danger that the public may feel their intelligence to be trifled with by the introduction of a live and active Cupid among a set of characters who are not even as far removed from modern life as those of The School for Scandal. It was not announced that the piece would forthwith be put into the evening bill.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (15 January, 1889 -  Issue 7435)

“THAT DR. CUPID” AT THE VAUDEVILLE.

DETERMINED once more to outwit the first night “wreckers,” whom he holds in perhaps exaggerated horror, Mr. Thorne produced Mr. Buchanan’s new comedy, “The Dr. Cupid,” at the Vaudeville yesterday afternoon, before an audience consisting mainly, in the reserved parts, of critics and actors, among whom were Mr. Toole, Miss Harriet Jay, Mr. Arthur Dacre, Mr. Arthur Stirling, Mr. John Coleman, Miss Norreys, Mr. Yorke Stephens, Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Jones, and others. Mr. Buchanan acknowledges a slight indebtedness to Foote’s farce “The Devil upon Two Sticks,” from which he has borrowed an incident in the first act; otherwise his play is entirely original. This incident, however, is the starting-point of the play, which is fantastic in style and supernatural in machinery. Heine as well as Foote seems to have been laid under contribution. The magic bottle belongs to the English Aristophanes, but for its contents Mr. Buchanan has surely gone to the “Gods in Exile” of the German Lucian. There is also a strong suggestion of Mr. Gilbert in the love-at-cross-purposes which forms the matter of the second act; but Mr. Buchanan’s humour is quite innocent of the peculiar Gilbertian twist. Harry Racket, a Cambridge undergraduate of eighty years ago, whose name conveniently indicates his habits, has had foisted upon him by an old usurer a collection of worthless “curios.” Among them is a glass jar, labelled “Amor vincit omnia sed scientia captat amorem,” and containing, apparently, an india-rubber doll, and in a fit of despair at the contrariety of the world in general Master Harry seizes the jar and flings it into the fire. Instantly the stage is darkened, and a quaint figure is dimly seen crouching in the fireplace. This is none other than Cupid, now an aged and somewhat rheumatic deity, who has been “bottled” since the reign of Elizabeth, and now, in gratitude to his deliverer, devotes himself to his service. At the end of the first act, the pair take flight to Bath, after the manner of Faust and Mephistopheles in the recent Lyceum spectacle. In the second act, Dr. Cupid, passing as Harry Racket’s tutor, sets the world of Bath by the ears and no whit advances his pupil’s cause. He speeds the shafts of desire so much at random (his cocked hat symbolizing his bow) that every one falls in love with the wrong person, the hero and heroine quarrel desperately, and society is reduced to an amatory chaos. The only sentiment in which all are agreed is a longing for vengeance on the sportive old blunderer who has wrought all the mischief. In the third act, fortunately, a little diplomacy and a few well-directed darts put matters straight again, and the “sweet bells” of matrimony are no longer “jangled out of tune and harsh.” It cannot be said that Mr. Buchanan has altogether avoided the pitfalls of vulgarity which obviously beset such a theme, but he has produced an adroit, lively, and sufficiently novel play, exactly suited to his actors and his audience. It was received with acclamation by the afternoon public, and there is no reason why it should not prove equally attractive “at night.” Mr. Thorne’s Dr. Cupid is a quaint and genial performance; Mr. Frank Gillmore plays Harry Racket with plenty of youthful spirit; Miss Winifred Emery as the heroine gives us no cause to regret too poignantly the absence of Miss Kate Rorke from the cast; Mr. Cyril Maude scores a great success as a stammering lover; Miss F. Robertson and Miss Dolores Drummond are sufficiently amusing as two amorous ladies of a certain age; and Mr. F. Thorne is excellent as a testy and hypochondriac country squire. The dresses, designed by Mr. Karl, are extremely quaint and effective, and it must be added that the performers wear the high-collared Tom and Jerry coats and Directoire skirts of our grandfathers and grandmothers with remarkable ease.

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The Daily News (15 January, 1889 -  Issue 13346)

MR. BUCHANAN’S NEW COMEDY
AT THE VAUDEVILLE.
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     The audience at the Vaudeville Theatre yesterday afternoon found Mr. Robert Buchanan in a new mood. “Sophia” and “Joseph’s Sweetheart” presented us with genuine comedy scenes and delightful pictures of English domestic life in byegone days. “That Doctor Cupid” deals also with the past; but it is conceived in a widely different vein. Its author describes the play as “fantastic,” and the epithet is certainly not misapplied. We gather from the acknowledgment that he has borrowed a hint from Foote’s old farce “The Devil on Two Sticks,” which in its turn was indebted to the “Diable Boiteux”; but the treatment, no less than the conception, is rather in the spirit of Mr. Gilbert’s “Creatures of Impulse,” and here and there it is impossible not to be reminded of the immortal John Wellington Wells. Still there is a boldness and decision amounting in themselves to originality in the way in which Mr. Buchanan—without the aid of music, so potent in taking the reason prisoner—goes about the business of uniting the real with the ideal, the matter of fact with the supernatural and blending with these incongruous elements the boisterous mirth which is apt to render wild imaginings rather absurd than impressive.
     It would not be easy to recall a piece more likely in manuscript to inspire doubts and fears in the breast of a cautious manager than Mr. Buchanan’s latest production. “How will the audiences take it?” we can well imagine Mr. Thorne asking himself, when he found that they were to suppose him to be coming forth after a captivity of three centuries, not from the huge sealed glass jar from which the once famous Mr. Wieland in the character of Asmodeus was wont to emerge, but from a squat quart bottle such as we see upon apothecaries’ shelves. There had been little in the first act or prologue to which this furnishes the climax to warn the spectator of so large an impending demand upon his faith. On the contrary, the scene had been pervaded by a graceful sort of realism, rendered all the more striking by the elegance of the costumes, which belong to the early years of the present century. We are at Cambridge in the lodgings of Harry Racket, a gay, handsome, and idle undergraduate. When the canting money lender makes his appearance and declines to assist his victim further unless he accepts as part of the usurious loan wine of doubtful and old “curios” of still more doubtful character; when the impulsive young lady who has won his heart makes her appearance in company with her charming friend, Mrs. bliss the youthful widow, and under the escort of a matter-of-fact aunt, we are in the realm of comedy, polished in dialogue, clever in situations, and admirably acted by Mr. Frank Gillmore, Miss Winifred Emery, Miss Marion Lea, and Miss F. Robertson. When the bolt falls at last, and Sir Timothy Racket’s letter announces the final discarding of his scapegrace nephew, something even approaching to serious interest is attained for the young lovers—left alone, it must be confessed, in rather improbable fashion by the watchful aunt—part with vows of constancy. It is at this point that Racket in his despair dashes the bottle which forms part of the money-lender’s consignment of curiosities into the grate. Then the stage is darkened, strange lights glimmer and flash, and forthwith the temporarily cramped and bowed Dr. Cupid emerges from the chimney-place. He is explicit as to his pedigree; and announces himself as no other than that mischievous boy who plays so prominent a part in the love stories of classic fable, though now somewhat aged and rheumatic through long confinement. No evil compact in the manner of Mephisto is that which he proposes. It is only to go to Bath and see life, and do what in him lies to aid in turning the true love of Harry and Kate into smoother channels. It is on this understanding that Dr. Cupid and his youthful deliverer disappear through the open window into the dusk that broods over the town of Cambridge. Words would fail to tell what scenes ensue in the ante-room of the new assembly at Bath under the reign of Beau King, who figures among the dramatis personæ, and who in 1806—the period of the story—had just succeeded to his stately office. Still more should we be at a loss to tell of the ingeniously complex game of cross-purposes which goes on in the third act at the site of “The Lovers’ Well.” It is all because of “that Doctor Cupid” that couple after couple catch the amatory infection; that Miss Lea, turned cruel to her stammering lover Charles Farlow, is smitten with the attractions of the undergraduate, with whom she insists with a delightful recklessness upon executing wild snatches from Sir Roger de Coverley, while her friend Kate, torn with jealous fury takes refuge in the arms of the hitherto hated Fungus. To the doctor’s ever ready “whiz” and dart from his invisible bow, we owe it again that Sir Timothy Racket’s designing old housekeeper makes love, as indeed does even the gentle Kate for awhile, to this irresistible personage, till all Bath seems to be involved in most admired disorder. Out of this chaos in the end, however, peace and contentment are finally evolved; in brief, the evil-minded are defeated and exposed, the true lovers are reunited, the irascible and self-willed Sir Timothy is brought to his senses, and Dr. Cupid speaks the last word—

Rejoice and echo in your exultation
The song of love that first awoke creation,

the curtain falls. Without unflagging spirit and thorough sincerity in the acting it might fare ill with a piece so wildly extravagant; but Mr. Buchanan has been in this respect singularly fortunate. There is no limit to Mr. Thomas Thorne’s vivacity and agility in the part of the Doctor. The “gay restlessness of limb” which Leigh Hunt discovered in the actor Lewis is certainly not wanting to Mr. Thorne; nor is the abandonment which never suffers the spectator to consider the why and the wherefore of his strange behaviour. Miss Emery’s sweet, good-natured impulsiveness and Miss Lea’s overflowing fun and banter serve equally in good stead; and Mr. Frederick Thorne contributes in the violently self-willed hypochondriac Sir Timothy a study of character which is one of the most effective factors in some of the best comedy scenes in the play. As to Mr. Cyril Maude’s stutter, which compels him in despair to write the declaration of love which he cannot otherwise make thoroughly intelligible, it is quite indescribable in its mirth-provoking qualities. The minor parts assigned to Miss Dolores Drummond, Mr. Wheatman, Mr. Buist, and Mr. Pagden were also without an exception well played. We have already referred to the costumes. Mr. Walter Crane and Miss Greenaway have helped us to perceive that our great-grandmothers’ attire was not so dowdy and hopelessly old-fashioned as it once was thought; but to know what elegance can lurk in the round gowns and furbelows, the high waists and large “ridicules,” the scarves and the sashes of the days when King ruled over the New Assembly Rooms, the curious should see the ladies in Mr. Buchanan’s play. A similar remark, with due abatement for the less graceful sex, applies to the high collared, gilt buttoned, swallow-tailled, green, red, and claret-coloured coats, and the dove and canary breeches and pantaloons of the gentlemen. Mr. Gillmore not only plays but looks the young college exquisite of the period to the life. Whether the fantastic extravagances of Mr. Buchanan’s piece are “for all markets” can only be proved when it is transferred to the evening bill, and submitted to the approval of a more normal tribunal than that which gathers at a first matinée performance; but that they greatly diverted the audience yesterday was abundantly evident in the enthusiastic reception accorded to all parties concerned.

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The Stage (18 January, 1889 - p.9)

THE VAUDEVILLE.

     On Monday afternoon, January 14, 1889, was produced a new and fantastic comedy, in three acts, written by Robert Buchanan, entitled

That Doctor Cupid.

Sir Timothy Racket     ...     ...     Mr. Frederick Thorne
Harry Racket      ...     ...     ...     Mr. Frank Gillmore
Charles Farlow   ...     ...     ...     Mr. Cyril Maude
Barney O’Shea   ...     ...     ...     Mr. J. Wheatman
Lord Fungus       ...     ...     ...     Mr. Scott Buist
Plastic                ...     ...     ...     Mr. Pagden
Beau King          ...     ...     ...     Mr. F. Grove
Doctor Cupid     ...     ...     ...     Mr. Thomas Thorne
Miss Bridget Constant...     ...     Miss F. Robertson
Mrs. Veale         ...     ...     ...     Miss Dolores Drummond
Mrs. Bliss           ...     ...     ...     Miss Marion Lea
Kate Constant    ...     ...     ...     Miss W. Emery

     It is, it must be confessed, a somewhat difficult matter to justly value this latest work from Mr. Buchanan’s versatile pen. It defies analysis: described as a “fantastic comedy,” it opens with a vein of serious dramatic interest, later it develops into the supernatural, treated after the Gilbertian method, and finally it winds up with rattling farcical comedy. The supernatural introduction of the title character is avowedly taken from The Devil on Two Sticks, an old play of ephemeral popularity, in its turn founded upon the celebrated Le Diable Boiteux. The scene of the first act is laid at Cambridge, in the college rooms of one Harry Racket, the spendthrift hero of the play. This young fellow, having by his madcap tricks worn out the patience of his rich and gouty uncle Sir Timothy, finds himself penniless and deeply in love with his pretty cousin, Kate Constant. Kate returns his love, but her aunt favours the suit of a certain wealthy Lord Fungus, so the lovers have only to mingle their tears, swear constancy, and part. This they do, leaving Harry solus: he, in a despairing mood, soliloquises and picks up an old jar, one, it should be explained, of several “curiosities” that have been foisted on him as part exchange for a bill by a rapacious money lender. Addressing the quaint doll-like figure preserved in the jar, he moralises upon the  vanity of human wishes, and becoming persuaded of the futility of his life, pitches the jar into the fire. With strange result, for the scene darkens, thunder is heard, the fire burns uncannily, and out of the glow waddles an elfish creature who, stretching and yawning, gradually discovers himself as a full-grown and rheumatic person of more than middle-age, attired in Elizabethan ruff, doublet, &c. To the bewildered youth’s naturally curious questions the strange figure introduces himself as Cupid, and explaining that through the evil machinations of an alchemist he had for three centuries been confined in the bottle, whence young Harry Racket had just released him. In proof of his gratitude for the service, he offers to assist Harry to regain his uncle’s favour and Kate’s hand. His means, however, to Harry’s regret, do not extend to the supply of unlimited cash, though they are potent enough to enable the pair to set out on an aerial journey for Bath, the scene closing in semi-darkness as the companions step from the window-sill. In the second act, “at the ante-room of the Assembly Rooms, Bath,” Cupid appears as Harry’s tutor, adopting for the purpose the title of Doctor. Sir Timothy enters, attended by his housekeeper, Mrs. Veale, a scheming person, who humours the irascible old hypochondriac, with a view of marrying his money, and the remaining characters are introduced, including Charles Farlow, an excitable, stuttering young fellow, in love with a roguish widow, Mrs. Bliss; Lord Fungus, the suitor to Kate Constant; and Beau King, the master of the Assembly Room ceremonies. In his endeavours to serve his master, Dr. Cupid makes blunders sufficient to set everyone by the ears. All the women but Kate fall in love with Harry, with the result that Kate throws him over for Lord Fungus, and Sir Timothy, furious at Mrs. Veale’s desertion, also renounces him, the act closing with a general denunciation of the author of the mischief. The third and concluding act, which passes on St. Valentine’s morning at the Lover’s Well, Bath, serves the unlucky Cupid with an opportunity of undoing the mischief he had unwittingly brought about. Harry and Kate, Farlow and Mrs. Bliss are united, old Sir Timothy relents, and the curtain falls on general happiness as Cupid, released from his debt of gratitude to his liberator, prepares to return to his classic home, there to renew his youth, and, it may be supposed, his mythical duties. In the two last acts there is ample scope for fun in the farcical intermixing that goes on through the ill-managed zeal of Cupid, and on these must the success of the play chiefly depend. There is considerable ingenuity and much boisterous humour in the intrigues developed, and on Monday the two acts proceeded with a running accompaniment of laughter and applause. The play is now put in the bill as the permanent evening attraction, and will doubtless draw for a considerable run, though there is room for doubt whether it will rival in success the two clever comedies from the same pen which it succeeds. That Dr. Cupid is a daring, almost a brilliant piece of work, and one, in its dealing with a difficult subject, of notable interest to experts in play-writing is certain, but there is a want of human interest in its characters that, with the general public, may tell prejudicially, despite its high spirit and unbounded humour. The dialogue is pointed and close; it contains some lines which on Monday lent themselves to risky misconstruction, and might be revised with advantage. The date assigned to the play, the beginning of the present century, gives scope for some bright and effective dressing of the high-waisted Kate Greenaway costumes for the ladies, and the equally quaint and picturesque coats and pants of our great grandparents’ days. Mr. Thomas Thorne made a most diverting Cupid; had the part been in the hands of any but an experienced and popular comedian, the success of the piece must have been endangered;—a difficult part, indeed, to play, but Mr. Thorne made every line and incident tell with his quaint humour. Mr. Frederick Thorne gave a highly-finished character sketch of Sir Timothy. Every peculiarity of the gouty, testy, self-willed old fellow was marked out with rare artistic skill; throughout he was pictured to the life. Young Racket—the name gives an index of the character—was played briskly and capitally by Mr. Frank Gillmore, whose performance gives promise of better things than the part allows him opportunity for. Mr. Cyril Maude as Charles Farlow gave an extraordinarily funny rendering of a stammering dandy lover, whose tongue fails him in the impetuosity of his love and jealousy. The remaining male characters, of minor importance, are efficiently done, Mr. F. Grove in particular being excellent as Beau King. Miss Winifred Emery played Kate Constant with that lackadaisical gush which appears to have been so generally characteristic of ladies of the period, and with no little charm of her own superadded. Miss Marion Lea exactly caught the spirit of her part, as a coaxing, pouting young widow; while the maiden aunt, Miss Bridget Constant, and the scheming Mrs. Veale, were played by Misses Dolores Drummond and Fanny Robertson respectively, in a proper vein of caricature, funny enough, but not over-acted. The dresses, by the way, were from designs by Karl, and executed by Messrs. Nathan and Sons. At the conclusion of the matinée on Monday there was enthusiastic applause, the company were recalled, and finally the author, who bowed his acknowledgements for the unmistakeable favour with which the play was received.

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The Graphic (19 January, 1889 - Issue 999)

     IN That Doctor Cupid, produced at a matinée at the VAUDEVILLE on Tuesday, Mr. Buchanan confesses to have taken the hint from Foote’s once famous farce founded upon Le Diable Boiteaux of Lesage; and it must be confessed that he has gone about the business of uniting sober reality with supernatural agency in a thoroughly confident and decided fashion. When we say that a little squat figure, preserved in an apothecary’s bottle about two feet in height, is supposed to be Cupid, in the person of Mr. Thomas Thorne, grown old, but, like Anacreon in his decline, still stirred by amatory raptures, we have said perhaps enough to show that the dramatist shrinks from no demand upon the faith of the spectators. This mystic element is introduced as the climax of a purely comedy-scene supposed to pass in the lodgings of young Mr. Racket, an extravagant scapegrace-undergraduate at Cambridge, in or about the prosaic period of 1806. Nothing, it must be confessed, in the colloquy between Harry racket and the extortionate money-lender, who insists on his victim accepting a mass of old curiosities—the wonderful bottle included —as part of the advance on a note of hand at usurious interest, tends to prepare the mind for the startling incident which follows, when Racket dashes the bottle, in his rage, into the empty fire-grate. Still less does the tender scene between him and his faithful sweetheart, Miss Kate Constant, broken-hearted at being commanded by her imperious aunt to renounce the scapegrace who has been discarded by his gouty and furious old uncle, Sir Timothy, give warning of the sudden darkening of the stage as the bottle flies into fragments, or the mystic flashes of light for the sudden appearance of Mr. Thorne as the wayward son of Aphrodite, sadly cramped and bowed by his three centuries of confinement, but ready as ever to play havoc with the hearts of men and women. But Dr. Cupid merely offers to take his deliverer to Bath, show him the fashionable world of that idle resort of health and pleasure-seekers, and there wait for something to turn up.
     The succeeding two acts are a giddy whirl of adventures in the new Assembly Rooms, then under the sway of Beau King, and at the Lovers’ Well on St. Valentine’s Day. Dr. Cupid, with his boundless vivacity, his extravagances and courtly graces, his delight in mischief, his inexhaustible confidence of power, turns Bath, so to speak, topsy-turvey. Lovers quarrel and make it up again; ladies make love to gentlemen, and as often as not to the wrong gentlemen; despairing and discarded adorers revile, and challenge the author of their miseries, and so the gay racket continues, till finally love prevails; and out of this chaos comes order, reconciliation, and reunion—not forgetting, of course, Harry Racket (excellently played by Mr. Gillmore), and his constant Kate, or even the fierce, irascible Sir Timothy. The performers, enter, without a single exception, into the wild spirits of the situation. Miss Winifred Emery as Kate Constant is never for a moment below the high level of good sports which sustains the situation. Not less delightful in another way is Miss Marion Lea’s shy, yet pert, timid, yet coquettish, widow, Mrs. Bliss, whose little encounters with her stammering lover, played with a thoroughly original vein of humour by Mr. Cyril Maude, afford boundless entertainment. A capital bit of humorous portraiture, too, is Mr. Fred Thorne’s gouty, amorous, gullible Sir Timothy, though the picture errs a little on the side of excess of force; and some minor sketches of character by Miss Dolores Drummond, Miss F. Robertson, Mr. Wheatman, Mr. Pagden, and Mr. Scott Buist, were all good in their several ways.

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The Era (19 January, 1889 - Issue 2626)

“THAT DOCTOR CUPID.”

A New and Fantastic Comedy, in Three Acts,
by Robert Buchanan, produced at a Matinée at the
Vaudeville Theatre, on Monday, Jan. 14th, 1889.

Sir Timothy Racket     ...     ...     Mr FREDERICK THORNE
Harry Racket      ...     ...     ...     Mr FRANK GILLMORE
Charles Farlow   ...     ...     ...     Mr CYRIL MAUDE
Barney O’Shea   ...     ...     ...     Mr J. WHEATMAN
Lord Fungus       ...     ...     ...     Mr SCOTT BUIST
Plastic                ...     ...     ...     Mr HENRY PAGDEN
Beau King          ...     ...     ...     Mr F. GROVE
Doctor Cupid     ...     ...     ...     Mr THOMAS THORNE
Miss Bridget Constant...     ...     Miss F. ROBERTSON
Mrs Veale          ...     ...     ...     Miss DOLORES DRUMMOND
Mrs Bliss            ...     ...     ...     Miss MARION LEA
Kate Constant    ...     ...     ...     Miss WINIFRED EMERY

     The author of That Doctor Cupid, which is very correctly called a fantastic comedy, acknowledges that he is indebted for a suggestion for his work to Foote’s famous farce The Devil Upon Two Sticks, produced with extraordinary success at the Haymarket Theatre on May 30th, 1768. He reminds us, though, that Foote’s piece was merely a satire on the medical profession, and boldly asserts that, beyond supplying a leading incident of the first act, it had nothing in common with his latest comedy, “which is otherwise entirely original.” Most English comedies, says an eminent critic, are too long. Now, if it cannot be said that Mr. Buchanan’s fantastic comedy is too long in point of time occupied in the representation, it must be asserted that its fun, of which there is ample for two acts, suffers by being spread over three, and that there is some danger that the laughter which is legitimately produced in the full development of the author’s idea may, before the end is reached, give way to weariness born of vain repetition. Mr. Buchanan has set himself the task of illustrating in humorous fashion the fact that Cupid’s the doctor who enters all portals, sly old concoctor of physic for mortals, and particularly to emphasise the undeniable truth that “sometimes he blunders,” making war where peace should be, and creating hatred where love was looked for. There is, as might have been expected, a distinct literary flavour in the dialogue, with a good deal of wit, spoiled only by the introduction of puns, which have been declared on excellent authority to be the lowest kind of wit. The intrigue, doubtless, is ingenious enough, but at the same time is terribly bewildering. Up to the end of the second act the confusion is diverting, because it is easily followed, but when Doctor Cupid in the third goes to work to correct his own blundering, confusion becomes “worse confounded.” Confusion, however, may be found as welcome in “fantastic” as in farcical comedy, and without a doubt if it make them merry the Vaudeville patrons will not be disposed to complain.
     The action opens in the rooms of Harry racket, a student at Cambridge, whose books are the devil’s—that is, they are cards. He has been holding high revel overnight, and has not got rid of the effects of his debauch, when there come to visit him Kate Constant, with whom he is desperately in love, and who is desperately in love with him, and is at no pains to conceal her devotion, notwithstanding that her relatives, including her aunt, Miss Bridget Constant, who accompanies her, desire her alliance with a certain Lord Fungus. Miss Bridget sees the hypocrisy of his studious pretensions, and rates him severely, and his hopes receive a rude shock with the receipt of a letter from his testy old uncle, Sir Timothy Racket, who has heard of his wild “goings on,” and who now declares his intention to disinherit him. It is on the security of his prospects in this direction that Mr Plastic, tailor and money-lender, has made him fresh advances, partly in cash and partly in goods, the said goods being represented by a collection of curiosities, among which is found an antique bottle, containing a strange-looking little figure, which seems to stare at its new owner when he takes in hand its fragile prison-house. Harry Racket, left alone, in his impatience with his ill-fortune, smashes the bottle, and lo! the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls, and through the darkness that suddenly fills the room there is discovered squatting on the hearth a grotesque being, who presently comes forth and to the astonished student introduces himself as Doctor Cupid. He is the veritable son of Venus Aphrodite grown old. He has been shut up in that bottle for centuries, and he is bound now to serve his liberator. He cannot do anything in the financial way, but he pins his faith to the proverbial philosophy that it is better to be lucky than rich, and he is ready to bring luck, and plenty of it, in the favour of the fair sex to his new master. Harry Racket’s only desire at the moment is to be transported to Bath, to which fair city Kate Constant has departed. “Take hold of my coat-tails,” says the doctor, “and the thing is done.”
     In the second act we find he has been as good as his word, for the scene is an ante-room in the Bath Assembly Rooms, and here are Harry Racket and Doctor Cupid posing as his tutor. Here, too, we find the hot-tempered Sir Timothy hobbling with the gout, and in danger of falling a victim to the matrimonial designs of his housekeeper and cook and nurse all rolled into one. Here also are Lord Fungus and Charley Farlow, Harry’s stammering friend, and Mrs Bliss, the pretty young widow to whom he has given his heart. Now Doctor Cupid begins to enjoy himself and to make use of his power. Unfortunately, being, as he puts it, out of practice, he blunders terribly, and succeeds only in setting the whole company at loggerheads. He reckons without Love’s constant attendant, which is Jealousy, and ere long poor Kate Constant, persuaded that Harry is false to her, spurns his advances, and accepts the attentions of his mushroom lordly rival. Pretty Mrs Bliss is made to fall in love with Harry Racket, the result being that that young gentleman is challenged to a duel by his quondam bosom friend Charley Farlow. Only in one instance does Doctor Cupid do good service, and this is by causing old Mrs Veale to make up to young Racket, and thus to open the eyes of Sir Timothy.
     In the third act, the scene of which is the Lover’s Well at Bath, Doctor Cupid, soundly rated by his master, and threatened with dismissal, goes to work to undo the mischief he has caused, and begins by making all the ladies in turn fall in love with himself, and in the end he not only sets the course of true love running smoothly, but rids Sir Timothy of his gout and his artful housekeeper by one clever move, and brings about reconciliation between uncle and nephew, declaring with a sentiment that tells somewhat against his own special faculty that there is one thing that is better than young love, and that that one thing is kindly old age.
     Mr Thomas Thorne entered thoroughly into the spirit of the author’s idea in the part of Doctor Cupid, and at the pranks of this elderly love-god shooting his imperceptible arrows from an imperceptible bow the audience laughed heartily, especially when, making love on his own account, he was the object of the caresses of ladies young and ladies old, who put their heads upon his shoulder and their arms around his neck, and called him “dear” and “darling.” The chief acting honours, though, were fairly and properly divided between Miss Winifred Emery and Mr Cyril Maude. The former represented Kate Constant, and put feeling as well as fun into her work. Quite delightful was her share of the first scene between Kate and Harry, where, making the best use of their opportunities, they indulge in a good deal of osculatory exercise; and quite charming in its almost tearful naturalness was her declaration that, in spite of opposition, she would wait, and wait, and wait for him even until she grew as old—as old as Auntie, a declaration at which “Auntie,” whose airs and graces were amusingly put on by Miss Fanny Robertson, was terribly shocked. In the later scenes, too, in the exhibition of Kate’s jealousy, and in her “spooning” under the influence of the mischievous Doctor, Miss Emery played with delightful appreciation of the spirit of the work, and was admired of all. To the credit of Mr Cyril Maude may be placed the fact that in Charles Farlow he gave us the very best stammering swell we have had on the stage since Sothern’s Dundreary. The audience roared over his expression of love, and roared again over his expression of jealousy. Mr Frank Gillmore gave amusing emphasis to the trials of Harry Racket, and the bluster of old Sir Timothy was comically brought out by Mr. Fed. Thorne. Miss Dolores Drummond gave undeniably clever treatment to the part of Mrs Veale, and a fascinating Mrs Bliss was found in Miss Marion Lea. The minor parts of Lord Fungus, Barney O’Shea, servant to Harry Racket, Beau King of the Bath Assembly Rooms, and Plastic were well handled by, respectively, Mr Scott Buist, Mr J. Wheatman, Mr F. Grove, and Mr Henry Pagden. In this comedy it was promised that the costumes would give us a reproduction of the dresses worn by our grandfathers and grandmothers, and in the work of “Karl,” who was intrusted with the designs, and of Messrs. L. and H. Nathan, who put the designs into execution, the promise was faithfully fulfilled, providing an interesting study, particularly for the lady visitors. The piece was admirably “put on” by Messrs Maple and W. T. Hemsley, and seemed to give abundant satisfaction, which at the end was expressed in a hearty call for the principals, and fro the author, who made his bow at the footlights. On Thursday evening That Doctor Cupid took its place in the evening programme, and with it we may wish Mr Thorne a continuance of the success he has enjoyed with its immediate predecessor.

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The Penny Illustrated Paper (26 January, 1889 - p.49)

     “That Doctor Cupid” fills the Vaudeville with laughter; and the heart of merry Tom Thorne rejoices. He has never appeared gayer. No wonder! It’s surprising how blithe people can be when they reap a golden harvest. The fantastic new comedy of Mr. Robert Buchanan—succeeding a brace of the same author’s Old English comedies that will bear revival again and again—achieved such instant success at the Vaudeville trial matinée that Mr. Thorne was amply justified in placing “That Doctor Cupid” in the evening bill. Quite a round of merriment is provoked by “That Doctor Cupid.” Released, à la Asmodeus, from his bottle, Doctor Cupid soon twists his rheumatic joints into working order; spirits his young Cambridge friend away from his college den to the Bath Assembly Rooms; and makes every woman fall in love with his charge and with himself; finally re-uniting the sundered hearts of Harry Racket (crisply played with “vim” and freedom by vivacious Frank Gilmore) and Kate Constant (played to perfection by Miss Winifred Emery). If you want an evening of mirth, drop into the Vaudeville, and relish the unctuous fun and humour of Mr. Tom Thorne as Dr. Cupid, the capital character-sketch of Mr. Fred. Thorne as the splenetic and “dotty” uncle, and the gay gambols of the dear old maids at Bath. “That Doctor Cupid” is enacted in the most sprightly fashion by one and all.

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The Theatre (1 February, 1889)

“THAT DOCTOR CUPID.”

New and Fantastic Comedy in three acts, by ROBERT BUCHANAN.
First produced at the Vaudeville Theatre, Monday afternoon, January 14, 1889.

     If continuous laughter is any proof of a success, Mr. Thorne has surely secured one in “That Doctor Cupid.” Mr. Buchanan has rightly named his comedy fantastic, for it combines the supernatural with the every-day life of the beginning of this century. Whether the general public will be attracted by this strange mixture, which at times reminds us of “The Bottle Imp,” “Creatures of Impulse,” and even “The Sorcerer,” remains to be proved. Certainly the author sprung his mine for the introduction of the supernatural in a deft and clever manner. The scene opens in Harry Racket’s rooms at Cambridge. Their occupier is a young gentleman who has devoted his time to drinking and gambling, and has been compelled to have recourse to money-lenders. One of them, Plastic, has been summoned to supply his necessities, and advances him £200 on the condition that he purchases certain articles. These are duly sent in, and prove to be various stuffed beasts, birds, skulls, and sundry specimens preserved in spirits of wine in bottles. Harry is engaged to Kate Constant, a charming, artless girl, who evidently prefers a dashing fellow of those days to a milksop, and has given him all her heart. She calls with her aunt, Miss Bridget, just when Harry has heard from his uncle, Sir Timothy, a gouty hypochondriac, that he has discarded him on account of the evil reports of him. Kate declares she will be true to him despite all his misfortunes, but her aunt jumps at Harry’s generous offer to release her from her engagement so that she may marry the rich Lord Fungus. When they are gone Harry looks round on the bill discounter’s rubbish, and takes up a bottle to which is attached a label bearing a Latin inscription, that love conquers the world, but science conquers love. Harry says it is wealth that conquers love, and in a fit of rage dashes the bottle into the fireplace, a crash is heard, and there appears a strange figure dressed in Elizabethan costume, who announces himself as Love. He tells how, having fallen from high Olympus, he became an imp, and that an alchemist of Queen Elizabeth’s day had entrapped him, and sealed him down in the bottle. As a recompense to Harry for freeing him, he offers him his services; though he cannot give him wealth, he will, by his power over all creatures animate, bring him good luck, and secure him his uncle’s good graces and his sweetheart’s hand. And so they fly off to Bath, whither Kate is gone with her aunt, and where also is staying for the benefit of the waters Sir Timothy Racket, attended by his sycophantic, wheedling nurse, Mrs. Veale, whom he thinks of marrying. Here Doctor Cupid, introduced by Harry as his tutor, proceeds to try and put matters straight for his pupil, but Cupid is so elated by his release from long confinement that he mismanages matters. Possessed of his invisible bow and arrows, he shoots his darts astray. He makes Mrs. Bliss a comely young widow, whom Charles Farlow, Harry’s friend, has been worshipping for years, fall in love with Harry, so does Mrs. Veale, so does Miss Bridget, until at last Kate is bound to believe that her lover is a deceiver, and accepts Lord Fungus. Doctor Cupid is dismissed in disgrace and with a curse, but he will not accept his dismissal till he has mended affairs, so in the third act he draws the current of love of all the ladies on himself in a most amusing scene, and then diverts their affection into its proper channels. Kate is reconciled to Harry, Mrs. Bliss to Farlow, the duplicity of Mrs. Veale is unmasked, and Sir Timothy is cured of his ailments, and taught that the true happiness of the old is not in selfish matrimony for themselves, but in witnessing its blissful results in the young. Taking the characters as they stand in the programme that deserve special mention, Mr. Frederick Thorne was excellent as the irascible gouty Sir Timothy, and gave some charming little touches, particularly when Kate intercedes for her lover. Mr. Frank Gilmore was a fine, impulsive young fellow as Harry Racket, and shows that he is rapidly advancing in his profession. Mr. Cyril Maude’s characterisation of Charles Farlow, a stuttering beau, was a perfect gem in acting, and Mr. Thomas Thorne was full of high spirits and dry humour as Doctor Cupid. In the third act, when he is scarcely absent from the stage, his “go” and vivacity were irresistible. Miss F. Robertson played well as a maiden lady of a certain age. Miss Dolores Drummond hit off to a nicety the fawning, deceitful attendant on Sir Timothy, and forcibly betrayed her real character when exposed through Doctor Cupid’s spells. Pretty Miss Marion Lea was a captivating Widow Bliss, and Miss Winifred Emery was a frank, loving girl as Kate Constant. I was sorry to see Mr. Scott Buist had not more to do as Lord Fungus; he was thrown away on so small a part, and one which gave him no opportunities. Mr. F. Grove did not quite picture to us Beau King. Messrs. Nathan must be complimented on the costumes, which, designed by Karl, brought before us so vividly the appearance of our dandies and ball-room belles when George was King, and King ruled over Bath. “That Doctor Cupid” was placed in the evening bill on Thursday, January 17, 1889.

[From The Penny Illustrated Paper  (30 March, 1889 - p.195)]

Punch (13 April, 1889 - p.171)

PLAY-TIME.

     Is That Doctor Cupid still possible? Wonderful to relate he is so, and nearing his hundredth night! “BUCHANAN and a hundred knights” sounds chivalric—Fabula narratur D.T.—but though “chivalry” may, or may not, “still be possible,” yet most decidedly no further doctoring of Cupid is possible after this curious comedy at the Vonderful Vaudeville. Mr. THOMAS THORNE is the Cupid redivivus, and when I looked at him,—he being about as unlike the little god of love as, for example, the HOME SECRETARY or the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER would be,—I could not help saying to myself, “Tell me, my heart, can this be love?” and replying to my own question, “No, it is only a Thorne in the flesh.”
     “O ye gods and little fishes!”—well, everyone knows the next line,—but what is Cupid without his wings? Truth to tell, though the public have, I suppose, taken kindly to the piece,—otherwise this unromantic, rheumatic Dr. Cupid could not have run till now and be still running,—Chevalier BUCHANAN’S play is a nondescript affair, neither comedy, not tragedy, nor farce, nor melodrama, nor good extravaganza, but a hotch-potch of all these ingredients served up in the first dish that could hold the mess together. Dr. Cupid himself is a supernatural being, compounded out of a Bottle Imp, Mephistopheles, an Arabian Nights’ Genie, Puck, Le Diable Boîteux, and Parson Adams. The piece begins with real good comedy, then suddenly we are taken into the domain of melodrama, where there is thunder and lightning, a darkened stage, breaking a magician’s phial, lurid light, and all the old mysterious noises that used to herald the advent of the marvellous Mr. GEORGE CONQUEST in a Pantomime at the Grecian. There is something more Grecian than Latin about this appearance of Eros at the Vaudeville, only that had Mr. GEORGE CONQUEST been the Cupid, we should not have seen him complaining of age, rheumatism, and cramp, but should have watched him bounding upwards and flying off in chase of some butterfly that reminded him of his long-lost Psyche. Who can believe in a Cupid with a cramp, except in an extravaganza? And, by the way, Mr. TOM THORNE may remember a certain  overgrown Cupid, in the burlesque of Paris, so funnily played by Mr. TURNER, who issued from a damp rose, limped with rheumatic pains, and noticed with sorrow that his wings were moulting.
     When Mr. BUCHANAN hit on this idea, he threw away the material for a capital opéra-bouffe, and spoilt a good comedy. Just at the end, after the serio-comic Demon Cupid had uttered sentiments worthy of a Christian divine, and made his last appearance as a Converted Cupid, the melodramatic effects of Act the First were repeated, and I fully expected that advantage would be taken of this in order to bring us all back again safe and sound to young Racket’s rooms at Cambridge, where with lights full on, we should find that all his experience with Dr. Cupid had been a dream. I do not say that, had this been so, I should have been one whit better pleased; but such an explanation, old-fashioned though it be, would have been dramatically satisfactory.
     The piece is capitally played by all, though I should not think Dr. Cupid would remain in Mr. TOM THORNE’S répertoire as one of his best parts. Miss ANNIE IRISH is delightful as the honest, frolicsome Kate; Mr. FRED THORNE first-rate in the very conventional part of an irascible gouty old uncle; Mr. GILLMORE gallant and gay as Harry Racket; and Mr. CYRIL MAUDE uncommonly good in the difficult part of “CHARLES his friend,—with a stutter;” and Miss MARION LEA, as the giddy widow, irresistible. Miss DOLORES DRUMMOND as the vinegar-faced but subsequently vivacious housekeeper, and Miss F. ROBERTSON as the amorous spinster, both excellent.

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