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ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841-1901) |
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THEATRE REVIEWS 12. A Sailor and His Lass (1883)
A Sailor and His Lass There was a brief exchange of letters on the subject of dramatic criticism in The Era.
The Echo (2 October, 1883) Has A Sailor and his Lass; or, Love and Treason, by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Augustus Harris, received the sanction of the Licenser of Plays? We have reason to believe that it has not, and that there may be a difficulty in the matter; at any rate, an expeditious authorisation of the new piece is unlikely. There is a terrific explosion-by-dynamite scene in the drama, and Mr. Pigott will have to satisfy himself personally of the harmlessness of the effect ere he passes it. Now Mr. Pigott is out of town, and hence may arise inconvenient delay. ___
The Times (16 October, 1883 - p.3) DRURY-LANE THEATRE. The prime merit of the grand new melodrama produced last night at Drury-lane is that it is set forth in five acts, in no fewer than 17 tableaux. A minor virtue is that it enables Mr. Augustus Harris to continue, in the character of a jack tar, that career of reckless but triumphant heroism in which he has already done so much to shed lustre upon the naval and military services of the country. For the rest, A Sailor and his Lass does not differ greatly from the accepted type of melodrama which a certain section of the public seem to delight in seeing again and again, and which, on analysis, will be found to resolve itself into the persecution of a chivalrous hero by a well-dressed but unscrupulous villain, whose ulterior object is to supplant his victim in the affections of a lady. Assuming that this familiar theme is worthy of being illustrated once again upon the stage, it may be conceded that Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Augustus Harris have displayed great fertility of invention and mechanical resource in their manner of setting it forth. They have laid both land and sea under contribution for thrilling episodes, and not content with introducing a malicious shipwreck and an exciting rescue, and with transporting the centre of interest from the high seas to the bar of the Old Bailey, and even to the condemned cell in Newgate, they shatter the nerves of the house with a dynamite explosion. ___
The Daily News (16 October, 1883 - Issue 11702) DRURY LANE. It was just ten minutes past twelve last night when Messrs. Buchanan and Harris came forward to bow their acknowledgments of the applause which had greeted the production of their new romantic melodrama, The Sailor and His Lass, at Drury Lane. They had had a good story to tell, and had told it by no means ill; moreover they and their colleagues had illustrated it with all the full and varied effects now thought not only appropriate but actually necessary on such occasions. The elaborate machinery of the stage had worked without an apparent hitch, and the waits between the acts had not been excessively long. And yet it was felt—by the authors probably not less than by the audience—that these four hours and a half, these five acts, and these seventeen tableaux, had proved far too much of a good thing. The fault is one which should not be difficult to remedy, and it should be remedied forthwith, for as it stands the piece has worn out the interest of its spectators exactly when its most exciting moment should be reached. The fault is not one merely of superfluous dialogue; it affects whole scenes which are not in the least wanted for the development of the main plot, and can hardly be required for mechanical reasons now that the management here has adopted the system of dropping the curtain in the middle of the act when one set-scene has to be exchanged for another. ___
The Morning Post (16 October, 1883 - p.3) DRURY LANE THEATRE. The sounds of dissent which at Drury Lane made themselves heard through the cheers elicited at the close of “A Sailor and his Lass,” may be taken as signs of the discontent of the audience at being kept for an hour and a quarter too long, rather than as an expression of disapproval of the work set before them. The new drama, due to Mr. R. Buchanan and Mr. Augustus Harris, has too much of the material the public loves to run any risk of permanent failure. All there is however of importance or interest is developed in the early acts, and the almost interminable series of the five closing acts, serve only to defer a conclusion which seems to be inevitable, and to weary, and, in the end, annoy the audience. This is the one great defect of the play. The strongest scenes, dramatically speaking, and the finest opportunities afforded the actors are not reached until a period when the public has grown impatient, and when the best acting fails to stimulate it. No difficulty should be experienced in removing this blemish. Of the successive scenes of the play, about a score in all, any one of half might be taken out without interfering with the comprehensibility of the plot, and with notable gain to the public. The excision of one act makes it indispensable if “A Sailor and his Lass” is to get its place even for the short period during which it can be given. For the purpose of excision the last act should be chosen. A very slight addition to the fourth act would bring about a satisfactory dénoûment, and the public would then be spared a closing scene of an execution, the grim and ghastly realism of which is intolerable. Putting aside this final blemish and the immoderate length of which we have spoken, “A Sailor and his Lass” may be awarded much praise. It is a powerful and emotional work, dealing with matters of actual interest, and bringing before the public a series of striking tableaux in which the marvellous resources of Mr. Harris’s house and his company are seen to advantage. Some claim is made at the outset upon the credulity of the public, which is asked to believe that a gentleman of large means and good birth, a country squire with broad acres, is not only a murderer, a seducer, a false witness, and everything else that a wicked squire can be, but the ally of a set of revolutionaries whose purpose is by means of dynamite to destroy social order and bring about a reign of anarchy. Granted this premiss, what follows may be accepted. It is then conceivable that the villain should, in order to “remove” a sea captain, who is his rival, send men on his ship to murder him and sink the vessel, and should, when this attempt miscarries, swear away his life at the Old Bailey. It may at least be urged in favour of these proceedings, that they furnish opportunities for a series of scenes which carry away the audience. The first act passes in a lovely pastoral scene by Mr. Emden, in which beneath the chestnut blooms a real cow is milked, and amidst other novel bucolic surroundings what promises to be a stirring action is commenced. Then follow views of the Tower, of the docks, of sailors’ dancing saloons, and at length of Parliament-street, with the famous dynamite explosion. This is managed with singular skill, and is likely to be long remembered. In the third act a series of views of life on shipboard, or wreck and escape, is exhibited, and the point of most thrilling interest is reached. Such more familiar and less sensational scenes as trials at the Central Criminal Court and views of London in the snow follow till the close is reached, when the news of a reprieve is received at the moment when the black flag is about to be hoisted as a sign that the hero is being hanged as a criminal. The stronger of these scenes, presented in a manner with which Mr. Harris has now rendered the public familiar, may stand beside anything that has been seen at Drury Lane. They are indeed marvellous. Mr. Harris plays with exceeding energy and with much dramatic feeling as the persecuted sailor. It is only to be regretted that the strongest scene is reached at a period so late that the public is indisposed to listen or to be interested. Mr. Fernandez acts in admirable fashion as a conscience-haunted murderer. Miss Clara Jecks gives a very sprightly piece of acting as a boy. Miss Jay has seldom been seen to more advantage than as the heroine, and Miss Sophie Eyre is very powerful as her sister. Mr. Henry George plays the villain in excellent style, and Mr. H. Nicholls and Mr. H. Jackson caused much amusement in comic characters. When the piece has been slashed and hewed into a reasonable length it is likely to prove one of the most pronounced of Drury Lane triumphs. ___
The Standard (16 October, 1883 - p.3) DRURY-LANE THEATRE. The Sailor and His Lass, the new piece at Drury Lane, which began last night at 7.45 and came to an end—after a revolting scene which should never have been put upon the stage—at 12.15, is a melodrama of the familiar pattern, elaborately set forth by the painters and carpenters. There is once more the virtuous hero incapable of crime; the villain, who causes him to appear guilty of sins he never committed; and, as is usual, as indeed is almost inevitable, the villain is in love with the excellent maiden whom the hero adores. Along this well-beaten path the authors, Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Augustus Harris, travel afresh, going out of their way now and again, with more or less discretion—most assuredly with less at the end of the work—as the exigencies of the sensational scenes it has been decided to introduce may require. These scenes are for the most part excellent of their kind, and they may very probably make amends for the total absence of literary power and for the comparative absence of desirable novelty. One fault of The Sailor and His Lass, its inordinate length, may very easily be amended. The characters frequently talk, as they sometimes act, for no apparent purpose; when a third of the dialogue has been excised the sensational scenes will follow each other more quickly, and if the final act were taken out altogether, and the story wound up in the fourth, as might very readily be done, the curtailment would be worthy of all praise. The hero of the new melodrama is named Harry Hastings, and he is mate on board a merchantman. A farmer and his daughter are the fashion in modern melodrama, and consequently there is a farmer here, Michael Morton, whose daughter, Mary, Harry loves; while his other daughter, Esther, has been betrayed by a scoundrel and deserted. Morton’s exceedingly realistic farmyard is the opening picture, and here is a real cow giving real milk into a real pail at the hands of a real dairy maid. Here, too, is the villain Richard Kingston, who, having betrayed Esther, is seeking to betray her sister Mary, a project which is shared by his cousin (owner of a property to which Kingston is heir). Morton is earnestly searching for the man who ruined Esther, and by the exercise of his native cunning Kingston makes it appear that the cousin is the culprit, whereupon Morton kills the obstacle to Kingston’s succession to the estate he covets. All this fits well enough, and fortune continues to aid vice. Esther has been turned adrift by her father, and, with doubtful propriety, she accepts Hastings’ offer to accompany him on board the ship in which he is about to sail, thus putting it into Kingston’s power to get rid of the girl, who is an incubus, and the man who is his rival at one stroke. For he, it appears, is an Invincible, high in command, and in due course the audience is introduced to the Secret Dynamite Factory, where the conspirators meet. It is arranged that some of them are to ship on board the Albatross, Hastings’ vessel, and dispose of him on the voyage; but first, although it has no special connection with the drama, the recent dynamite explosion in Westminster has to be reproduced. It is the farmer Morton who is made to do the deed, by command of the villain Kingston. An explosion there is; nothing comes of it; but it brings down the curtain on what in modern melodrama is regarded as an effective situation. The ship at sea, sailing parallel to the footlights, is then disclosed, and for convenience of inspection the side is lifted up, so that what passes in the cabin may be readily seen. A ship is, however, such an intricate machine that this is not particularly effective, and it is, therefore, fortunate that melo-dramatic interest should now arrest attention. The attempt to kill the mate is frustrated by means of a stowaway, to whom he has been kind. As the mate struggles with his would-be murderers the vessel strikes and sinks; but he is able to cling to the rigging, after having placed Esther and her child in temporary safety. The scene is here decidedly picturesque. Mr. Emden has painted a striking sea piece; the mast to which Hastings and Esther cling rises and falls with the waves, the splash of which adds much to the reality of the picture. There is besides an exciting episode, for one of the Invincibles is also clinging to the mast, and, after imploring Hastings’ help, and being raised from a position of imminent peril, he tries to murder his preserver. A boat sent from the lighthouse to which the faithful stowaway and the murderous crew have made their way rescues the sufferers, and Hastings returns to the Farm, arriving, naturally, just at the moment when he is being traduced by his deadly rival. Danger from an unexpected source overwhelms the hero. He is accused of the murder which Morton committed; the old man will not condemn himself; Kingston swears that he was a witness of the assassination, and the “Interior of the Central Criminal Court during Assizes” is displayed. That this business is cut short must be admitted. All that is seen is the return of the Jury, who have been out to consider their verdict, the re-examination of Kingston, and the record of “Guilty.” Had the authors been wise they would have wound up their play at this point. Nothing remains except to free the innocent and bring home the villain’s guilt, and a very few minutes would suffice for this. The audience, however, is doomed to go through horrors which will pain those who feel the illusion, and must have a tendency to disgust those who are less susceptible. Hastings is seen in the Condemned Cell; the Governor of the Prison warns him that there is no hope, and advises him to make peace with Heaven; there is what would be, if the actor and actress were somewhat stronger, an agonising last interview between the lovers. Nor is this all. Vengeance has overtaken Kingston, whom Esther and an accomplice denounce. Morton admits his guilt, so that Hastings’ innocence is shown, and Mary rushes to Newgate to endeavour to stop the execution. The exterior of the snowy prison is revealed, and the girl beats at the door, begs the gaoler to let her in, and implores the sheriff to stop the dreadful preparations. Then the interior of the prison is seen. The procession to the scaffold passes slowly across the stage, a warder prepares to hoist the black flag, the bell tolls—no detail of the awful scene is omitted. Surely the elaboration of these horrors has no connection with dramatic art, and should be interdicted by good taste. The happy end, or at least the cessation of active disaster follows. ___
The Pall Mall Gazette (17 October, 1883 - Issue 5809) “A SAILOR AND HIS LASS.” IF elaborate scenery and realistic stage effects constitute a good melodrama then “A Sailor and his Lass” must be numbered among Mr. Harris’s Drury Lane triumphs. There are numberless thrilling scenes, moving incidents, and dramatic situations. The audience is delighted to have the scent of the hay wafted to it, and welcomes the agricultural details, the real cow and the apple-blossom, with undoubted warmth. If a four-wheeled cab, drawn by a real grey mare, raises enthusiasm, what can be expected from a dynamite factory, an explosion, a storm, a workable ship, a wreck, and a hanging? Surely these are enough to make the fortune of any sensation drama. But he would indeed be a phenomenal genius who could give compactness and continuity to a play which was divided into five acts and seventeen tableaux. So with all its realism and scenic pictures—which Mr. Harris knows so well how to produce—the story itself plays quite a subordinate part, and the action is delayed over and over again for the stage carpenter. The story is simplicity itself. Harry Hastings is the sailor hero, and Mary Morton is his sweetheart. Richard Kingston is the villain, whose hands gradually come to be imbued with every crime under the sun. He has betrayed Esther Morton, and having cast her off he falls in love with her sister Mary. Farmer Morton, the father of the two girls, is led to think that the squire of the village is the man who has wronged his daughter. The squire and the farmer meet, angry words pass, Morton draws his knife and runs his landlord through the body. Kingston, the diabolical, finds him redhanded, consents to keep his secret, and accuses the unfortunate Hastings, (who is some distance away at the time) of the murder, attributing jealousy as the cause. By the murder Kingston succeeds to the property of the squire, who is his cousin. Meanwhile Esther and her child have been turned adrift on the world’s mercy, and Hastings has promised to take her far away across the ocean, where she can hide her shame. The scene then shifts to a disreputable London street, with a mews on one side and a dynamite factory on the other, the interiors of which are both disclosed. A comic cabman (his morality is so unexceptionable that Mr. Harris really ought to put every London cabby on his free list) drives up with his four-wheeler and grey mare, bearing with him Esther and her child, whom he consigns to the temporary shelter of his own roof-tree. In the middle of an admirably managed thunderstorm, a number of conspirators arrive, and are admitted to the dynamite factory. Then Hastings appears, and quickly gets into mischief. He enters the factory, and is at once surrounded by the dynamitards, among whom, oddly enough, is the now wealthy Kingston. He is allowed to depart scot-free, but fearing that his secret alliance will be betrayed Kingston resolves that he must die. He manages to pass off his gang as sailors upon the captain of Hastings’s ship, the Albatross, and strict orders are issued to despatch him at the earliest opportunity. Here the scene is introduced in which a terrible dynamite explosion occurs, though apparently without any motive. The ship sails, and presently we find her in what we must suppose is mid-ocean. The ship itself, though no doubt the result of much thought and ingenuity, does not seem to be built on any approved model, and it would puzzle a jury of sailors to determine her rig. When we see her she is supposed to be driving away before a good “slant” of wind, but the sails flap about, and have a most unnautical appearance. Another contrivance, though necessary, does not heighten the illusion. The sides of the ship are drawn up like window blinds, and we have the interior disclosed to us. This wonderful craft knocks up against a reef and breaks to pieces, some of the crew escaping in a boat. They are lucky enough to reach a lighthouse which happens to be handy, and are rescued by the benevolent keeper and his old wife. The curtain again rises on the tableau of the play. We see a wide expanse of ocean, with the rigging of the foundered ship sticking up in its midst. To this frail support Hastings, Esther and her child, and the chief dynamitard are clinging. The dynamitard and Hastings have a deadly struggle, in which the latter flings his opponent headlong into the water. Then, opportunely enough, the lighthouse-keeper and his wife come to the rescue of these much-suffering people and carry them off. Hastings returns home, is accused of the murder of the squire, and is sentenced to death. Then matters look serious indeed, and for a moment it really appeared as if a grave departure was to be made from all the established rules of melodrama. We see him pinioned in his cell in Newgate, the chapel bell tolls mournfully, he is led out, preceded by a procession of warders, and taken to the scaffold—a sight of which we, fortunately, are spared. The black flag is got ready to hoist, when some one comes rushing in with a reprieve, and Hastings is saved, evidently not a moment too soon. Of the taste of all this we say nothing. The advocates of realism can wish for nothing more. ___
The Standard (19 October, 1883 - p.3) “REVOLTING” REALISM. TO THE EDITOR OF THE STANDARD. SIR,—My attention has just been called to a short leader in your Evening Edition of Tuesday commenting somewhat severely on the realisation of a public execution, with all its “revolting” details, in the Drury-lane drama, A Sailor and his Lass. Unfortunately, I quite fail to see in what respect such realisation differs, artistically speaking, from the pictures given in true tragedy of executions by the axe or guillotine, as in dramas illustrating the lives of Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette, or of burnings at the stake, as in the well-known French play of Jeanne d’Arc, made famous by the acting of Rachel. I shall be answered, doubtless, that the rope is anti-poetical and hideous, while the axe, the guillotine, and the faggot are poetical. Again, I fail to see the distinction, though it was pointed out to me, adversely, when I first attempted, years ago, in my poems, to get pathos and beauty out of themes of coarse contemporaneous life. To myself individually, there is solemnity and poetry in the idea of a poor modern martyr, condemned to die at the hands of the common hangman, awakening in the dim light of a wintry morning, and walking to the scaffold, while the death-bell tolls, amidst the thickly-falling snow. From the beginning of my literary career I have been among the strongest opponents of capital punishment; and if, in the drama already named, I picture that horrible blot on our civilisation as it is, I do so, both as artist and man, in the confidence that the representation can shock no truly tender heart, or otherwise do anything but good. Nowadays, our judicial murders are done in secret, and nowadays the super-sensitive nerves of certain playgoers are “revolted” by any reproduction of the stern and terrible facts of human suffering. Though such things are, they must not be spoken of or seen. ___
The Pall Mall Gazette (19 October, 1883) Mr. Robert Buchanan is much exercised in mind to think that the charge of “revolting realism” should have been brought against the execution scene in the Drury-lane drama of “A Sailor and his Lass.” Mr. Buchanan is a poet as well as a playwright, and perhaps this is why he fails to see “in what respect such realization differs, artistically speaking, from the pictures given in true tragedy of executions by the axe or guillotine.” But a critic might remind Mr. Buchanan that there are many things which are fitting enough in poetry, but which are wholly unsuited to sensuous realization either in painting or on the stage. Perhaps Mr. Buchanan would have remembered this canon but for the fact that he was influenced, it seems, by a didactic motive. He has always been “among the strongest opponents of capital punishment,” and he pictured that “horrible blot upon our civilization” as a man as well as an artist. If the result is one of which the critics cannot approve, it is only another instance of the loss which a work of art always suffers from the intrusion of a directly didactic purpose. All good art is didactic, no doubt, but, like happiness, the moral will be found all the better if it is not too assiduously sought. ___
The Stage (19 October, 1883 - p.14) DRURY LANE. On Monday, October 15, 1883, was produced here a new drama, in 5 acts, by Robert Buchanan and Augustus Harris, entitled A Sailor and his Lass. Harry Hastings ... ... Mr. Augustus Harris This is an effective, but not, on the whole, a skilful specimen of the play panoramic or ultra-sensational that is constructed altogether on faulty principles. A drama to be worth anything should be so designed as to allow its scenery and sensation to spring naturally and effectively out of the given story. Mr. Augustus Harris thinks otherwise, and is evidently firmly convinced that for Drury Lane all that is wanted is a story written up to given scenes and sensational effects. We are aware that this plan has succeeded before, in the teeth of critical opinion; but the faultiness of the system is clearly shown when Mr. Harris comes to work with a gentleman who may be a very good novelist, but has never yet shown any capability as a dramatic writer. Mr. Paul Meritt and Mr. Augustus Pettitt were both trained under Mr. George Conquest, and know how to carpenter a play for the stage—they have studied dramatic construction as an art. Mr. Robert Buchanan knows little, or next to nothing, about the stage, and can only be guided on such matters by Mr. Harris, who is himself comparatively young and inexperienced. A Sailor and His Lass looks to the critical spectator as if the two authors had hunted out every possible dramatic device, situation and sensation, and had determined to weld the fragments together with a curious amalgam. No matter how discordant were the component parts, the dramatists made up their minds to hammer them together. The result is not satisfactory. Dynamite explosions, drinking dens in Ratcliffe Highway, scuttling of ships, shipwrecks, stories of stowaways, rescues from watery graves, trials at the Old Bailey, condemned cells, and realistic executions do not go well together. They do not harmonise or commingle, and the audience leaves the theatre in anything but a peaceful or satisfied frame of mind. Time was when one sensation scene, as it was called, was sufficient for any play. The Colleen Bawn and Arrah-na-Pogue were beautiful works that did not wholly depend on the Water Cave scene or the Ivy Tower. They were good plays independent of sensation. So to a great degree is The Silver King. Sensation assists it but, does not make it. In this instance, Mr. Harris has, in his endeavour to catch the vulgar applause, too directly jeopardised his chance of success. He has out-Heroded Herod, and run the risk of offending some of his staunchest patrons. The political and social dialogues are certainly not in the best taste, for, granted that we do not agree with political agitators of the Joseph Arch type, who set the agricultural labourers by the ears, they are vastly different from manufacturers of dynamite and black-hearted assassins. It is to be regretted also that public taste is so degraded as to relish for its amusement scenes so painful and revolting as are supposed to take place between the condemnation and execution of a criminal at Newgate. This is morbid stuff at the best, but as here presented it is earnestly to be reprehended. ___
The Era (20 October, 1883 - Issue 2352) DRURY-LANE. Harry Hastings ... ... Mr AUGUSTUS HARRIS It took from a quarter to eight until a quarter past twelve o’clock on Monday evening to tell the story of this most wonderful production, and at the latter hour the majority of those who had made up the crowded audience found that, if they wanted to discuss at once the merits and demerits of the piece, they would have to do it in opposition to a howling wind and a pitiless rain. From this bare statement of fact it will be gathered that The Sailor and His Lass is a drama of extraordinary length. Here was a mistake to begin with, and one that might easily have been avoided. Prolixity is a blunder, and the “too much,” of which we have often complained, is a source of weakness rather than of strength. And it is so evident too that the authors have erred in this respect quite wilfully. They probably had—we think most likely they had—a good, if a very conventional, story to tell, but they seem to have ransacked the literature of the minor theatres of the past fifty years, and to have dragged forth incidents and scenes, comic and otherwise, wherewith to spin it out and so to spoil it. They and their story more than once part company altogether. probably they imagine that the taste of the public is so degraded that a big sensation will be greatly preferred to dramatic interest, and so, putting their hero and heroine, their virtuous ones and their villains, almost altogether out of sight and out of mind too, they take their patrons round by Parliament-street to give a startling illustration of the attempt to blow down the Government offices by dynamite. This is only one—it is the conspicuous one—of the instances in which Messrs Buchanan and Harris have sacrificed their story for sensation, and have given us noise where they should have given us interest. Both in the matter of incident, then, and in the matter of talk, there should at once be a vigorous cutting down, and we would suggest that there might with advantage at once be sacrificed the business illustrative of a low dancing den, which in its realism is disgusting, and should never have been tolerated by the Licenser of Plays, and the exhibition, toward the end, of the details of a private execution at Newgate, which, to say the least, is brutal. Also, of course, should go that scene of the explosion above referred to. It is a drag upon the story, and it is sure to keep away the nervous, who when they visit the theatre are not most pleased—as some managers seem to think—when they are most frightened. To say that there is very much that is improbable in A Sailor and his Lass would be idle, for nobody would dream of expecting too much probability in a work of this class at Drury-lane, but we think we have a right to quarrel with the authors here for bringing the hero so near to a vile end for a crime with which there is not the shadow of a shade of evidence to connect him. The scene of the opening is a farm and orchard in Middlesex, about fifteen miles from London, and a very pretty scene it is, by Emden, with its pretty rose-climbed cottage, its fruit trees, its real cow, and the new-made hay throwing the “scent over the footlights.” (The cow and the hay, it may be remarked, are not by Emden.) In spite of their pleasant surroundings, it soon becomes evident that Farmer Morton and the rustics are anything but contented, for they are willing to listen to, and to applaud, the outpourings of the frothy agitator Green, a member of a secret society, ready to use dynamite to further their ends. What those ends are is not made very clear. The Farmer certainly has a grievance, for he is threatened with eviction by young Squire Carruthers, who is ready to come to terms only on condition that the Farmer’s daughter Mary will receive his odious attentions. Morton has already driven one daughter, Esther, from his door because she will not reveal the name of her seducer, who we quickly learn is Richard Kingston, the Squire’s cousin, and heir to his property. Mary’s sweetheart is a gallant young sailor named Harry Hastings, who offers to take Esther across the seas, this offer being for some remarkable reason accepted. Kingston has no difficulty in persuading the Farmer that his daughter Esther’s seducer was the young Squire, and the old fellow in his anger, plunges a knife into his landlord’s heart. Kingston, quite prepared for this, comes upon the scene, bids the farmer fly, and then, raising an alarm, denounces the now departed Harry Hastings as the murderer, thinking thereby to secure Mary Morton for himself. Now we hurry on to the second act and find the hero quite ready for all sorts of deeds of daring. He begins by boldly entering the workshop of the dynamite gang with Kingston at their head, and too readily accepts their assurance that they are engaged only in preparations for a little smuggling. Having interviewed a comical, good-hearted cabman who has taken care of Esther, he proceeds on his way to the docks, stopping only to assist Carrots, a street waif, and to bully a policeman. He is surprised and enters a protest, but an ineffectual one, when he discovers that the dynamiters have been engaged to man his vessel, they having resolved to follow him and to “settle” him at a distance from England. It is after this comes the Westminster explosion, so it is evident some of the gang are left behind in London. In the next act we get a view of the ship at sea. The plot to murder Harry is discovered by Carrots—on board as a stowaway— and, as forewarned is forearmed, Harry is prepared for the attack, and has anything but a pleasant surprise in store for those who seek to take his life. The ship, however, goes down, and our hero is presently seen in the rigging of the foundered ship with Esther and her boy. Here occurs the most exciting incident of the play. The most bloodthirsty of the gang clings to the rigging; Harry, in the goodness of his heart, assists him to mount to his resting-place; the villain, with black gratitude, again attempts his life, and then, amid the approving applause of the excited spectators, he is hurled back to the waters from which he has but just before escaped. Of course, rescue comes for the hero, and in the fourth act we find him back again at the old farm, only just in time to save his sweetheart from Kingston’s outrage and to denounce him. In return Kingston orders his arrest as the murderer of Squire Carruthers, and, amidst all the paraphernalia of the Central Criminal Court, we hear the jury pronounce him guilty, poor Esther, who has not yet found heart to denounce her seducer and the father of her child, whose word is accepted as proof of Harry’s guilt, falling in a swoon on the floor of the court. The last act is occupied with the arrest of Kingston; with the confession of the Farmer, who learns too late how cruelly he has been deceived; with the painfully realistic business of the condemned cell and the preparations for the execution, and with, as will readily be guessed, the arrival in the “nick of time” of the reprieve, and the joyful reunion of the sailor and his lass. ___
The Graphic (20 October, 1883 - Issue 725) |
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IT will be remembered that Mr. Augustus Harris has recently made public confession that his last new romantic play did not prove remunerative, because, though audiences were numerous, they were not numerous enough to reimburse the outlay upon the costly scenery and mechanical contrivances. The reason given for this disappointment was no doubt strictly accurate, but, on the other hand, Mr. Harris as an experienced manager must have been well aware from the first of the conditions of success; and it is therefore impossible to escape the conclusion that, however numerous his audiences were, they fell considerably short of what he hoped and expected them to be. This is, in fact, to say that Freedom was an acknowledged failure.Nor were the causes difficult to detect. The truth is that Mr. Harris’s principle of management is a little behind the times. It is based on the old-fashioned maxim that the appetite of the play-going public may be fed inani picturá, or in other words, that in a romantic drama the first thing is to have a succession of picturesque scenes and startling effects; the second thing to have a story with which these scenes and effects are to be associated—whether directly or indirectly, whether skilfully or clumsily matters little. Plays,it is true, have again and again been constructed on this basis, and have succeeded; but it is no less true that romantic dramas which depend only on tableaux and scenes of excitement, are now passing rapidly out of fashion. Scenic effects no doubt still attract, and always will attract, the multitude; but they must, as a rule, form part and parcel of a drama which interests by virtue of a coherent and interesting story. If the reason of this change of fashion—or rather, this advance in the public taste—be asked, the answer is that playgoers have of late had the advantage of comparing good romantic plays with bad ones, and have learnt to know the difference. It is Mr. Sims and Messrs. Jones and Herman who have been most instrumental in bringing this change about. Those who have seen The Lights o’ London and The Silver King—pieces with plenty of “sensation” in them, but sensation subordinated to the purposes of a story that excites curiosity and maintains interest—are naturally ill-content with pieces constructed on the old-fashioned plan of trusting chiefly to the combined efforts of the scenic artist, the stage carpenter, the machinist, the property man, the costumier, the custodian of the gas-bags, and the director of the lime light. ___
The Penny Illustrated Paper (20 October, 1883) |
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THE enterprising Actor-Lessee of Drury Lane would have been wise in his generation had he resolutely compressed the extraordinary new melodrama of “A Sailor and His Lass” into actable dimensions. Had he taken this common-sense step, the merits of the play produced on Monday night as the joint work of Mr. Augustus Harris and Mr. Robert Buchanan would inevitably have been dwelt on at greater length by the jaded critics of the daily papers, who, worn out by the inordinately long performance of the first night, were left by the printers barely time to record their first impressions of the tedious concluding scenes. _____ Curtailed with skill (as I have no doubt the drama has been ere this), “A Sailor and His Lass” should interest large Drury Lane audiences for many nights to come. What a magnificent sight this grand playhouse presented on Monday night! Packed from pit to the topmost bench of the gallery, the teeming theatre was a sight to inspire any actor or playwright. And it was certainly a most liberal dramatic feast that Mr. Harris had prepared for his friends—too liberal, indeed, as it turned out. The public were played into exceeding good humour by the lively sea-song music discoursed by Mr. Oscar Barrett’s remarkably strong band. A roar of applause, mingled with appreciative laughter, greeted the rollicking, hearty appearance of Mr. ’Gus Harris in the guise of a jolly Jack Tar, Harry Hastings. With what gusto does Harry kiss and hug his fair sweetheart, Mary Morton, in the blossoming orchard of Farmer Morton! The piece, indeed, opens strongly in this first act. Interest is aroused by the sweethearting of Harry and Mary; by the return of her betrayed step-sister, Esther, babe in arms, and by the Farmer’s curse of the repentant girl; swiftly followed as these episodes are by the crafty manœuvres wherewith the soft-spoken scoundrel, Richard Kingston, shifts the suspicion of being Esther’s seducer from himself to his cousin, Squire Carruthers, whom the father is led to stab to the heart when he comes philandering after Mary. This partiality of the young Squire for flirting with Mary had already brought about a conflict between Harry and Carruthers. Seizing upon this fact, the designing Iago who caused the farmer to strike the fatal blow accuses the innocent sailor (well on his road back to London) of being the murderer—whispering to the horror-stricken Mary that he will only keep the fact secret on condition that she gives him her love. The curtain thus falls on a powerful situation. But the chief thread of the story is, for the two succeeding acts, all but dropped. They are devoted to the stirring adventures, ashore and afloat, of Harry. The gallant sailor, who has promised to safeguard Esther to America, leaves her in the temporary custody of a kind-hearted cabby, Bob Downsey, who conducts her to his humble home, and gives her shelter, and the solace of his kind-hearted wife, Matilda. The front of his house is obligingly removed to allow us to see the comfort his mare Martha enjoys in his stable on the ground floor, and to witness the cordial hospitality lavished by the poor couple upon Esther on the first floor. On the opposite side of the mews stands a Dynamite Factory, which is also revealed by the simple process of removing the front wall. Catching the watchword, “Thirteen to the dozen,” Harry Hastings gains entrance to this haunt of conspirators, and finds the scoundrelly Richard Kingston (whom he believes to be a true craft) among them. He is got rid of by a subterfuge—the assurance that it was only a secret meeting of smugglers. But his appearance in their midst calls forth a sentence of death directly he has gone. As vividly as Mr. George Augustus Sala many years ago described Wapping life in an article in Household Words entitled “Jacks’ Alive,” is the lively scene of a Sailors’ Dancing Saloon in Ratcliff Highway pictured on the stage. A page in contemporary history, the Dynamite Explosion in Westminster, is also illustrated with startling vraisemblance; but why poor Farmer Morton should be dragged in to act as chief Dynamite agent is inexplicable. The ship scene, in which the little stowaway warns Harry of the plot of the Dynamitards to chloroform him, would have told better had the action taken place on deck instead of in the cabins, which are shown by bodily dropping one side of the vessel. Very striking, however, are the rescue by the lighthouse-keepers, and the final struggle for life on the wreck between the Dynamitard Bradley and Harry prior to the saving of himself and poor Esther and the child. This rescue once effected, the three long acts that followed, narrating the conviction of Harry for the murder he never committed, the repentance and death of Farmer Morton, the unmasking of the villain, and the pardon of the long-suffering hero on the steps of the scaffold, came as an anti-climax; for an audience well accustomed to the ways of transpontine playwrights knew well enough that Harry would in the end triumph over villany, and that “A Sailor and His Lass” would be united—as they were. _____ Mr. Harris, it is only just to say, acted very creditably as Harry Hastings. Mr. James Fernandez’s Farmer Morton was a strong impersonation most skilfully and admirably worked out with the conscientious care of a thorough artist. Miss Sophie Eyre as Esther and Miss Harriet Jay as Mary Morton were also excellent; and Miss Clara Jecks’s “Jo”-like stowaway was worthy this clever young actress. Mr. Harry George as Richard Kingston, Mr. William Morgan as Squire Carruthers, Mr. Harry Jackson as the gossiping cabman with Tory views, Mr. A. C. Lily as the Captain of the Albatross, Miss M. A. Victor as the cabby’s “old woman,” Mr. Charles Sennett as Bradley, and Mr. Harry Nicholls as the inimitably droll and unconsciously humorous Dynamitard Green, all did their best likewise for “A Sailor and His Lass,” the scenery of which, by Mr. Henry Emden, Mr. T. W. Grieve, Mr. William Perkins and Mr. Ryan, has been prepared regardless of expense. Mr. Harris and Mr. Buchanan bowed their acknowledgments of a hearty call at the end of the drama, which is bound to be much more effective by the time these lines are read. ___
The Age and London Magpie (20 October, 1883 - p.10) FOOTLIGHT CHATTER. A Sailor and his Lass, the joint work of Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Augustus Harris, is a long and laboriously constructed drama, containing enough material for two or three separate plays. It was no doubt this very redundancy that militated against the complete and signal success which the young manager of Drury Lane Theatre has been hitherto accustomed to achieve since the outset of his managerial career. It is certainly one of the most difficult things in the world to write a play for Drury Lane Theatre (except at such holiday time as Christmas, when all London goes to the National Theatre), and for this very sufficient reason: The theatre must be full in order to pay, and the play which crams the pit and gallery will rarely fill the higher priced parts of the house. Either one portion or the other falls off. It was a problem which was temporarily answered by the World, and Youth, perhaps by Pluck, but that play created signs of weariness on the part of the public, and Freedom, by Mr. Harris’s own showing, did not pay in this large house, though in a smaller it would probably have been a financial success. Here then is the difficulty—a great expensive house, which, when full, contains great masses of the public, who vary much in their requirements. How far will A Sailor and his Lass satisfy the general theatre-going public for whom Mr. Harris caters? Beyond all question, Mr. Robert Buchanan is more literary than the general run of the writers who have been employed by Mr. Harris, though it must be admitted the new play does not shine by way of literature. But as a skilful combination of effective machinery, good painting, stirring dialogue, vigorous plot and popular sentiment, it yields to no predecessor during this present dynasty. It is a tale of a sailor falsely accused of murder that his lass may be lost to him, and ending in a Newgate procession to the scaffold—the sight of which is fortunately spared us;—but all is suggested by the black flag which a warder prepares to run up as a signal that the sailor, who, of course, is saved, has been swung off. This scene is as new as it is palpitating and obviously realistic. All London is already talking of the mechanical effects, and of the ship which goes down bodily on the level, and which weighs, when freighted, four tons. Much of the other scenery is very fine and poetical indeed. Of the acting it may be said that Mr. Augustus Harris impersonates with great energy and earnestness the part of the Sailor Hero, the leading part of the drama. Mr. James Fernandez plays a character quite unworthy of his powers, except in a single scene in the last act, where Mr. Fernandez renders valuable assistance to the drama. Mr. Henry George is a deep-dyed villain of the gentlemanly type which has recently become fashionable in melodrama, and Mr. Harry Jackson is really admirable as a kind-hearted London cabman, a part Mr. Jackson acts with lifelike fidelity to nature. Mr. Harry Nicholls obtains some laughs as a Radical spouter and conspirator. Miss Harriet Jay is the heroine of the piece—“little Mary”—a designation which scarcely fits a lady of her physical proportions. I do not think Miss Jay suited to this class of characters. Miss Sophie Eyre is dramatic as the heroine’s sister, who has “gone wrong.” Miss Clara Jecks is excellent in the small part of a stowaway lad, and Miss Victor’s comic talents are turned to good account as the honest cabman’s wife. ___
Bell’s Life in London (20 October, 1883 - p.7) Realism reigns triumphant at Drury Lane Theatre, and if a house packed from floor to ceiling on the first night of the production of “A Sailor and His Lass” can be accepted as an augury of success, Mr Augustus Harris and his co-dramatist, Mr Robert Buchanan may congratulate themselves on the achievement of a desired end. I am disposed to think, however, that succeeding audiences will not ratify the verdict passed on Monday night, and that even real cows and horses will be barely sufficient to endow the drama with a vitality necessary to anything like prolonged existence. Let me not be mistaken. Mr Harris has done everything in his power to place before the public a play which is the very embodiment of scenic effect, but unfortunately in his endeavour to reach the pinnacle of stage realism he has been forgetful of the fact that something more than the efforts of the painter and the carpenter is requisite to interest the spectator. In “The Sailor and His Lass” Mr Harris has built up a charming body, but Mr Buchanan has not had the power to infuse into it the living soul. __________ The plot of the drama contains nothing that is new. The hero is named Harry Hastings, a mate on board a merchantman, and he is in love with Mary, the younger daughter of Michael Morton, a farmer. The elder daughter, Esther, has been betrayed, and, as usual in dramas of this kind, deserted, the villain being one Richard Kingston, who in the opening scene is seeking to betray Mary. It is in this scene that a real cow is introduced, and a dairymaid proceeds with her ordinary duties in a very matter of fact way. Morton has turned Esther adrift, and is searching for her deceiver, when Kingston, who is, by the way, the head of an Invincible Brotherhood, contrives to persuade the old man that the squire is the culprit. A quarrel ensues between the farmer and the squire, and the latter is killed. Esther in the meantime has accepted Hastings’s offer to accompany him on board the ship in which he is about to sail, and proceeds to London. Here the audience is introduced to a dynamite factory, and while the members of the brotherhood are busy arranging for the blowing up of a police court, Hastings gains admittance. The conspirators, dreading any revelation on his part, arrange to send some of their party on board the ship with instructions to dispose of Hastings and scuttle the ship. The explosion takes place, the hero’s life is saved by the timely warning of a stowaway, and the ship founders. This is one of the great scenes of the piece, for Hastings is discovered clinging to the mast of the ship, having in his grasp Esther and her child. One of the conspirators, who is also clinging to the mast, attempts to murder Hastings, but in this he is foiled, and ultimately Hastings, Esther, and the infant are rescued by the lighthouse keeper and his wife. The hero returns to the farm, and as a matter of course arrives just in time to be arrested for the murder which Morton had committed. On the trial Kingston swears that he was a witness of the assassination, and Hastings is condemned to death. After this nothing remains to complete the drama but the confession of Morton, and the audience is now treated to a surfeit of horrors. Hastings is seen in the condemned cell, the governor of Newgate exhorts him to make his peace with Heaven, and finally an agonising interview takes place between the lovers. The procession to the scaffold is seen to pass across the stage, the bell tolls, and—Mary arrives with the news that her father has confessed his guilt. __________ As I have already hinted, the literary merits of the piece are small. Whether Mr Buchanan’s work has been sacrificed to the exigencies of the stage carpenter is a question which I have no intention to discuss, but that the mechanical arrangements completely overshadow the characters and progress of the play is obvious. Let me say, however, that most of the scenes are masterpieces. The farmyard, the scene of the explosion (in what way the explosion is connected with the plot is a mystery to me), the sinking ship, the rescue, the Old Bailey, and others are marvels of ingenuity and the scene-painter’s art. But I must take exception to one which too faithfully reproduces a dancing saloon in Ratcliff Highway, and I would advise Mr Harris to remove it. Flaunting Kate Hackabouts are not a pleasant sight at any time. __________ The honours were given to Mr Harry Jackson, who as a London cabman was alternately humorous and quaint. Mr Fernandez had little to do in the earlier parts of the play, but in the scene where he confesses his guilt this excellent actor was more than equal to the occasion, and gave a powerful realisation of tragic intensity. Mr Harris as Harry Hastings was the same Mr Harris that I have seen in other melodramas, nothing better than usual, but certainly nothing worse. Miss Sophie Eyre and Miss Harriet Jay were the representatives of Esther and Mary Morton, and both did their utmost to infuse life into the dry bones of the drama. The authors appeared before the curtain in obedience to the usual call, and I have no doubt felt flattered. ___
Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper (21 October, 1883 - p.12) PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS. DRURY LANE THEATRE. The most inveterate lovers of sensation found themselves surfeited on Monday, when the new drama compounded by Robert Buchanan and Augustus Harris, although commenced at a quarter to eight, did not conclude until ten minutes after midnight. In the anxiety to provide an exciting entertainment, the whole thing had been overdone. The story of A Sailor and His Lass is simple enough—being confined to the clearing of the nautical hero from false charge of murder fastened upon him by a villain—but the surrounding incidents, which engaged the services of thirty-eight characters and occupied five acts and seventeen scenes, proved well-nigh bewildering. Act 1 presents a picture of agricultural discontent, leading up through much mischievous plotting to the deliberate murder of a young squire by a farmer. Aided by the villain who has prompted the crime, the assassin succeeds in escaping suspicion, though he is drawn into further evil courses. In the second act he is seen as the tool of a Dynamite gang, being made the instrument for causing an explosion exactly resembling that which took place at the offices of the Local Government Board. This, however, has nothing to do with the real plot, any more than a painfully realistic picture of low life among the degraded women of Ratcliff Highway. A shipwreck in the open sea, arranged on a most elaborate scale, forms a great feature of the third act, which includes also a lighthouse scene and a struggle in the rigging of the sunken ship. After escaping all these perils of the deep, the hero returns to undergo fresh troubles ashore. He no sooner appears to claim his lass than he is cast into prison, found guilty, and condemned to death for the murder of the squire. The interior of the Old Bailey brings the fourth act to a close, and the fifth shows the Sailor in the condemned cell, from which he marches pinioned to the gallows, a reprieve arriving only at the very last moment. It will be seen that there is no single element of novelty in the plot, and the manner in which it was presented did not atone for the deficiency. Much of the business was crude in the extreme, while the mounting, despite the elaborate display, suggested undue haste and consequent confusion. The chief honours of the acting were carried off by Mr. Harry Jackson, who made an admirable study of a comic cabman. Mr. Fernandez, when opportunity served, played with marked intensity as the farmer overwhelmed by remorse. Under more favourable circumstances Mr. Augustus Harris will do himself far greater justice as Harry Hastings than was possible on the first night. He made a bluff and kindly-hearted sailor, who carries the sympathy of the audience entirely with him. The part of the lass is not a strong one, and Miss Harriet Jay failed to make it impressive. Extended as was the first night’s performance, the reception was a good one, and with ruthless compression there is hope for the piece obtaining a run. ___
The New York Times (29 October, 1883) STAGE EVENTS IN LONDON PIECES FOR SHOW AND THE NEWEST SUCCESSFUL ONE. BUCHANAN AND HARRIS AND THEIR “SAILOR AND HIS LASS”— LONDON, Oct. 16.—Last night the long-promised and often-postponed new “grand nautical sensation drama” of “A Sailor and His Lass,” by Robert Buchanan and Augustus Harris, was at length produced at Drury-Lane Theatre. The repeated postponement of the play was due to more than one cause. In the first place, it is got up with more than usually elaborate scenic effects, the stage “set” being extraordinarily numerous and complicated, especially in the case of a wonderfully realistic ship scene, the machinery of which fairly broke down in the course of rehearsal and had to be entirely reconstructed. Again, the Lord Chamberlain—that terrible authority who watches so carefully over the morals and politics of our stage—demurred to a proposed reproduction of the famous Fenian dynamite explosion in Charles-street, Westminster, which was to form one of the sensational features of the piece, and progress could not be made until the great affair had been so arranged as not to shock his lordship’s sense of propriety. So, Mr. Harris, after many announcements of his intention to produce the piece on a particular night, was compelled to promise the performance with the qualifying and pious reservation of “D. V.,” which irreverent persons have translated as meaning, “If the Lord Chamberlain and the machinist are willing.” However, the great censor of the stage is at last pacified and the Deus ex machinâ has at length allowed the ship to be launched, and so the new Drury-Lane venture has been started on what promises to be a fairly prosperous career. ___
The Theatre (1 November, 1883) Our Play-Box. “A SAILOR AND HIS LASS.” By ROBERT BUCHANAN and AUGUSTUS HARRIS. First produced at the Theatre Royal, |
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THE dramatic life and adventures of Mr. Augustus Harris are little short of miraculous. His appetite for adventure, his thirst for gore, his love of danger, difficulty, and dynamite are seemingly unquenchable; and living (dramatically) as he does in a seething whirlpool of criminal commotion and “effects,” there is good ground for fear that the result on the actor-manager may be of a disastrous nature. In fact, it is high time to check his boisterous career, for this last Drury Lane monstrosity is really too much for us. When Mr. Harris some years back assumed the management of what he is pleased to call the National Theatre, he felt the pulse of the public, and pretty accurately diagnosed the very low state of the public taste requiring sensation, outrage, and noisy nonsense. He accordingly produced “The World,” in which, with commendable accuracy, he played a villain. He then entered on a wild course of extravagance. He is a born stage-manager, and a master of mechanism. He has, moreover, a power of ludicrously audacious advertisement that tickled the public taste; and so he piled up horror upon horror in the series of bombastic pantomimes that he is pleased to call plays, and the public liked the horrors, and meekly, indeed cheerfully, swallowed them. Unfortunately, Mr. Harris was not content to be a king among melodramatic managers. He insisted on becoming both author and actor; and the result is that we have first protested, then laughed, then growled, and now are almost seriously sulky. ___
The Graphic (3 November, 1883 - Issue 727) Apropos of some recent remarks on the “real shower of rain” in the new romantic drama at Drury Lane, we have received from Mr. Augustus Harris a note, in which he says:—“Is it worth while letting you know that the writer of the contradiction relating to ‘the objectionable realistic water effect’ in the new play was slightly in error, the ‘rice and spangles’ being only used for the splash against ‘Miss Eyre’s petticoats’ in the mast scene—which, by the way, was the only ‘real water’ objected to. The rain is water.” |
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[Advert for a revival of A Sailor and his Lass from The Stage (22 May, 1885 - p.12)]
The Stage (10 June, 1897 - p.12) THE NOVELTY. Following out their newly-formed policy of presenting a series of Drury Lane dramas at their excellently-managed theatre, Mr. Walter Tyrrell and Miss V. St. Lawrence have staged for a fortnight, beginning on Whit-Monday, A Sailor and His Lass, by Robert Buchanan and Augustus Harris, which was originally produced October 15, 1883, the cast then including the lamented impresario, Messrs. James Fernandez, Henry George, Harry Jackson, Harry Nicholls, Misses Harriett Jay, Sophie Eyre, M. A. Victor, and Clara Jecks. A Sailor and His Lass has never been regarded as a good specimen of its class, but still it contains enough variety of incident and sensation to make it entertaining to popular audiences, and in this light it is certainly now being considered at the Novelty. For instance, the wreck of the “Albatross,” and the rescue by the lighthouse keeper, both very fairly carried out, have been watched with keen interest, while the later scenes in Newgate, recently beaten on their own ground by similar passages in Saved From the Sea, retain their power to impress the imagination. The performance given on Tuesday by the stock company was effective in the main. Miss St. Lawrence displayed her now familiar blend of searching earnestness and well-assumed vivacity as Mary Morton, the betrayed sister, Esther, being represented with care by Miss Isa Bellington. As the rebellious old farmer, Michael Morton, Mr. William Luff, though forcible, was too preachy and monotonous, while the rôle of the insidious Richard Kingston gave Mr. Bernard Copping no scope for passing out of the beaten path of conventional stage villainy. Mr. Jack Haddon, generally inclined to be too strenuous and vociferous, by no means spared himself in his manly impersonation of the sailor-hero, Harry Hastings. Mr. Harry Jackson formerly made the kindly cab-driver, Bob Dounsey, almost the most popular character in the piece, and the same now applies to Mr. Newman Maurice, who evidently found the part a congenial one. Mr. Clifford Soames did capital work as the young squire, Walter Carruthers, who is murdered in act one, and afterwards, we fancy, he appeared, also with success, as the boldest member of the dynamite gang. Miss Maudie Hastings gave on Jo lines a pathetic embodiment of the little waif and stowaway, Carrots, originally played by Miss Clara Jecks, and Miss Lucy Murray was well in the picture as the cabman’s wife. Mr. Teesdale was efficient as the cowardly professional agitator, Green, and the other places in a long cast were suitably filled. |
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[Advert for provincial tour of A Sailor and His Lass from The Stage (30 June, 1898 - p.18)] _____
Next: Bachelors (1884)
Back to the Bibliography or the Plays or Harriett Jay Theatre Reviews
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