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ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841-1901) |
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THEATRE REVIEWS 5. The Queen of Connaught (1877)
The Queen of Connaught (Harriett Jay played the role of ‘The Queen of Connaught’.) |
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[Advert for The Queen of Connaught from The Times (Monday, 15 January, 1877 - p.8)]
The Times (18 January, 1877 - p.9) THE THEATRES. The management of the Olympic has but poorly consulted its own interests in the advertisement with which it has prefaced the programme to its new play, the Queen of Connaught. We are required to believe that this play, of which the subject is “entirely contemporary,” depicts a kind of “Irish life, character, and manner, which has not been portrayed in any previous drama.” We may read a fairy story with very great pleasure as a fairy story, but if we are gravely desired to accept it as a narrative of actual fact, and to believe that jewels really did fall and may again fall from the mouths of good princesses, and toads and reptiles from the mouths of bad princesses, the story ceases to amuse us. Now, as a matter of fact, Irish life as depicted in the Queen of Connaught appears to us to be remarkably like Irish life as depicted in any other Irish melodrama we ever saw, save that, perhaps, it may be a little less like the reality. The whole play is, as it seems to us, but a compound of pretty nearly every Irish piece that has been on the boards within this generation, with a spice of Maxwell’s “Irish Rebellion” for flavour. The good and bad characters are pretty much as usual; there is a most unconscionable villain; a headstrong Irish girl, rather more headstrong perhaps than she has generally appeared to us; a pretty peasant girl, whose affections are “trifled with,” whose life is attempted, but who passes with safety through both ordeals, and appears in the nick of time to confound the machinations of the villain; there is a comic servant, and the usual proportion of “boys,” who are equally ready to die for or to kill “the master,” on the slightest provocation. There is, to be sure, some attempt at originality in the character of the heroine, who gives her name to the piece, but it is a distorted and unnatural character, and for our part we much prefer some good old conventional type, endeared by long and pleasant familiarity, than originality such as this. So much for the claim of novelty. With regard to the piece itself, there is a fair amount of life and action about it; and the third act concludes with a powerful and picturesque scene, though of a very familiar type. The play is, in short, a fairly good melodrama of the school with which Mr. Boucicault has made our stage familiar. In such works no great literary skill is generally to be found, nor perhaps even required, and its absence here cannot be regarded as abnormal. If it had not been for that unfortunate advertisement, the responsibility of which the authors and the management must, in the absence of any definite information, be content to share, though it would have been impossible greatly to praise the Queen of Connaught, it would not have been necessary to linger over its defects. The best acting in the play is unquestionably shown by Mr. Flockton in the character of Anthony Dunbeg. The man, who has taken life in a drunken brawl, is a fugitive from justice, and believing himself to have been betrayed by the hero, the English owner of an Irish estate, is determined, in revenge, to add the crime of murder to that of manslaughter, but fortunately discovers hsi mistake before he has satisfied his vengeance. This character Mr. Flockton represents with much power, and, in general, with a just avoidance of exaggeration. In the last scene, where he discovers and owns his mistake, he is much to be praised for the quiet of his tone and bearing which are yet full of strong force and pathos. The part of the heroine is played by Miss Cavendish with animation and correctness; but it is an unnatural and something of an unpleasant part, and Miss Cavendish, though a skilled and powerful actress, is somewhat lacking in variety of expression, and too generally dependent on her author to be able to conceal these facts. Mr. Neville, as the hero, John Darlington, is pretty much like Mr. Neville in most of his late characters, and Mr. Hill’s vein of humour is not suited to the representation of an Irish servant. Both Miss Carlisle and Miss Dubois do the little they have to do in a satisfactory manner; but the playbill says all that is necessary to say of the other characters. ___
The Week’s News (20 January, 1877) Theatrical and Musical. A new play, entitled “The Queen of Connaught,” was produced at the Olympic Theatre on Jan. 15. The play is founded on a novel bearing the same name. Mr. John Darlington, a wealthy roving Englishman of reserved manners, but noble disposition, purchases an estate in the neighbourhood of Connemara and marries Kathleen O’Mara, a young lady of ancient but decayed family, who, before bestowing her hand upon him, had made him promise that he would reside altogether in Ireland and devote his time and fortune to the hopeful task of reviving the faded glories of her house. Of this covenant he is honourably observant. All his good offices, however, only result in drawing down upon him the vengeance and ill-will of the very peasantry whom he seeks to befriend, and who denounce him for a proud, cold-hearted Saxon. This is sufficiently mortifying, but what aggravates his disappointment beyond endurance is to find that he is misjudged by his wife, who, full of romantic anguish about the so-called sorrows and sufferings of the Celtic race, continually taunts him with “misunderstanding” the people amongst whom it is his misfortune to dwell. At last a cruel suspicion falls upon him—that of having violated the rights of hospitality by surrendering to justice Anthony Dunbeg, a homicide, who, on the plea of remote consanguinity with the O’Maras, had sought sanctuary in his house. He had done no such thing; the man who had given information to the police being in reality no other than Kathleen’s own cousin and former lover, a certain Randal Dooneen, who himself was in no better case than the scoundrel he had hunted down, having attempted to drown Nannie Crogan, a peasant girl whom he had basely betrayed, but whom Darlington had rescued. Threatening letters reach him by every post, and dastardly plots are laid against his life. His wife, though she had at first mistrusted him, at last learns to love and admire him, and the scene in which the interest of the story is presumed to reach the highest point of excitement is that in which, having tracked him at night to a cave in the wilds of Innishnamoe, whither he had been lured by his would-be assassins, she exercises her traditional authority as Queen of Connaught and rescues him from their murderous hands. The rest of the play is devoted to the exposure of Randal’s villanies, the comfortable bestowal of Mr. Dunbeg, the fugitive homicide, who hardly deserves so much consideration, and the re-establishment of friendly relations among persons who had grievously misunderstood one another. In the representation it derives its chief attraction from the admirable acting of Miss Ada Cavendish as Kathleen O’Mara, and Mr. Neville’s spirited and genial performance of Darlington. Mr. Flockton is also to be commended for his clever impersonation of Dunbeg. The scenery, mainly consisting of mountain landscapes, is excellently painted. ___
Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper (21 January, 1877 - p.5) PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS. OLYMPIC THEATRE. In a note appended to the programme announcing The Queen of Connaught at this house, the public were told:—“The subject is entirely contemporary, and depicts a kind of Irish life, character, and manner, which has not been portrayed in any previous drama.” After this, when on Tuesday evening a by no means crowded audience found themselves witnessing a badly constructed play of the old-fashioned type, made familiar by The Colleen Bawn, Peep o’ Day, and a score of other pieces, some not unnatural surprise was excited. The new play is put forth as a “new and picturesque comedy-drama;” but no attempt is made to introduce anything like a comedy element into it. There is the familiar “colleen,” Kathleen O’Mara, with two lovers—a wealthy young Englishman (John Darlington), and an Irish cousin (Randal Dooneen), the latter a villain, who in the first act pushes a peasant girl whom he has betrayed into a deadly stream. An impecunious squire, a priest, a comic servant, a murderer, and a number of “boys” complete the number of well-known stage personages. The great defect of the plot is that it lacks interest, and it is impossible for the audience to sympathise with any of the characters. Kathleen, a romantic girl, known as the “Queen of Connaught,” marries the Englishman, but first insists that he shall conform to Irish tastes and habits. This of course he promises to do, though he afterwards finds it impossible to carry out, and is accordingly the object of suspicion and threatening. The tenants for whom he builds new houses resent his interference, whisky-drinking friends of his wife’s father vote him a milksop, and when finally he is supposed to have rendered up the murderer Dunbeg (a remote relative of the O’Maras) to justice, his own wife turns against him. After being lured into the “Distillers’ Cave, in the Wilds of Innishnamoe,” Darlington is about to be assassinated by the “boys,” when he is rescued by Kathleen. Finally it is made clear that Randal Dooneen is the betrayer, and he is arrested by the police, the poor peasant girl whom he attempted to murder, and who was rescued by the Englishman, appearing against him. There is some really good writing in the piece, but dialogue goes for little in a drama which depends upon thrilling incidents and strong situations. Miss Ada Cavendish made a very earnest and impassioned Kathleen, and was received with abundant applause. The easy manliness and force of Mr. Neville enabled him to give prominence to the character of the Englishman; but the chief acting part fell to Mr. Flockton, who displayed much intensity as Dunbeg. Mr. Arnold was good as the villain, Randal; Miss Carlisle struggled successfully with the very unthankful part of the betrayed peasant girl; and Miss C. Dubois made an exceedingly bright and charming Cousin Norah. Mr. Hill was very comic as the servant, but had little o’ the Irishman about him. The authorship of the play is not acknowledged; but rumour asserts that Mr. Robert Buchanan has had a hand in it. ___
The Examiner (27 January, 1877 - Issue 3600) The value of a comma is great, but has perhaps never been so distinctly evidenced as in the review of the ‘Queen of Connaught,’ in Public Opinion, from which we quote the following:—“Who wrote ‘The Queen of Connaught,’ one of the most popular novels of last year? Rumour says, Mr. Robert Buchanan’s sister-in-law. Who has dramatised it? The same saucy jade, says Mr. Buchanan.” What Public Opinion means is not at first by any means clear. It does not, however, intend any rudeness, but there should be no comma after the word “jade.” |
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[Advert for The Queen of Connaught from The Times (29 January, 1877 - p.8)]
The New York Times (6 January, 1878) Mr. Robert Buchanan probably finds a new cause for feeling bitterly against all mankind because “The Queen of Connaught” did not make his nor the fortune of Mr. Neville at the Olympic. The drama was not without merit but the action of the play was worked out on the poorest models, and the situations were forced and unnatural. You may possibly have an opportunity for judging for yourself how far London was right in rejecting “The Queen of Connaught” as Miss Ada Cavendish will be with you next year and this drama is in her répertoire. ___
The Daily News (19 November, 1880 - Issue 10793) CRYSTAL PALACE.—The revival of The Queen of Connaught, as one of the afternoon performances in the Theatre of the Crystal Palace, derives an additional interest from the first appearance in the part of the heroine of the young lady who is the author of the remarkable novel on which this play is founded, and also joint author of the stage adaptation. Miss Jay is a lady possessing many qualifications for the position of leading actress in romantic drama. She has a fine expressive countenance, a graceful figure of the full middle height, and a voice which is not wanting in power, and is probably capable, under good training, of excellent effect both in light and pathetic utterances. Unfortunately she is as yet but little skilled in the arts of the stage. Her movements are not ungraceful, but they are somewhat timid and constrained; she has no adequate command of those little resources by which the practised actress is able to make her presence felt, even when she is taking no part in the dialogue; and moreover her delivery is rather distressingly formal. This latter defect was apparently exaggerated in some degree from her efforts to reach what actors call the “pitch,” of a theatre by no means favourable for conducting the sound of the voice. It will be fair therefore not to judge her from the performance of yesterday afternoon any further than to say that her impersonation, in spite of its technical deficiencies, is of sufficient promise to give hope that Miss Jay will eventually take a place in the leading ranks of her new profession. Her efforts were well supported by Mr. Henry Neville, Miss Jecks, Mr. Brooke, Mr. Proctor, and the other members of the rather strong company assembled; and the play, with its picturesque and quaint scenes of life in the West of Ireland, appeared to afford much pleasure to a large audience. |
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[Press notices of Harriett Jay in The Queen of Connaught _____
Next: The Nine Days’ Queen (1880)
Back to the Bibliography or the Plays or Harriett Jay Theatre Reviews
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