THEATRE REVIEWS

35. The Sixth Commandment (1890)

The Sixth Commandment
by Robert Buchanan (an adaptation of the novel, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky).
London: Shaftesbury Theatre. 8 October to 14 November, 1890.

The poor critical response to The Sixth Commandment led to some correspondence in various papers.

The Morning Post (15 September, 1890 - p.2)

     Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis will open her season at the Shaftesbury Theatre on the 8th of October with a new play by Mr. Robert Buchanan bearing the strange title, “The Sixth Commandment.”

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The Stage (19 September, 1890 - p.11)

     The Pall Mall has, on the top of a letter that appeared in its columns last week, started a controversy on the subject of “The Seal of the Confessional” as applied to the working out of The Village Priest and The English Rose. Not much good can result from the correspondence after all is said and done. A dramatist, like a poet, is always allowed a little license, and may be forgiven if he does not always adhere to facts in his works. However, this is an age when everybody “wants to know all about it,” and perhaps the editor of the paper in question is wise in asking for good free “copy.”

     Up to the present the title settled upon for Robert Buchanan’s new play to be produced on October 8 at the Shaftesbury is The Sixth Commandment. This is such a careless age that they are many I fear me, who will have to look the commandment up before they will call to mind what it enforces. There is no reason why a dramatist should not take the whole of the commandments one by one as titled of and texts upon which to build a series of plays. A combination of the moral and the interesting.

[advert for The Sixth Commandment from The Times (8 October, 1890)]

The Times (9 October, 1890 - p.9)

SHAFTESBURY THEATRE.

     There seems to be a fatality connected with plays of Russian life; they are pervaded by a deadly dulness. Mr. Robert Buchanan’s new play, or rather adaptation, being on a Russian subject, is not exception to the rule. It is in five acts; it lasts from 8 o’clock till close upon midnight; it is peopled by the conventional characters who have so often done duty on the boards in this connexion—the reckless young Socialist, the chief of police, the quasi-official personage in variably addressed as “Excellency,” the travelling Englishman, who is storing his note-book with facts as to “Savage Russia,” and after a succession of gloomy and far-fetched incidents we come to the inevitable scene in the wilds of Siberia, with its trains of prisoners toiling along under the whip of the overseer. All this has been seen many times before, we might say ad nauseam, for the Russian drama has almost become a by-word on the stage. Mr. Robert Buchanan has been attracted to the subject by Doskoievsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment,” and upon this The Sixth Commandment, as the new play is named, is in a great measure founded. But the fact remains that, despite the freshness of his inspiration, he deals with a set of characters and a class of incidents which experience has shown to be dramatically unprofitable. Hence the undisguised discontent of the first night public with the new play. A sense of weariness set in early, steadily increased, and culminated in something like active hostility when, at the fall of the curtain, the author indiscreetly accepted a call. Mr. Robert Buchanan affixes to the playbill his usual “Author’s Note.” Let us rather have in such cases as this an “Author’s Apology.” Whatever the theme or its treatment, no play can be regarded as a source of unmixed pleasure when it drags its weary course over a period of nearly four hours, and condemns those who would see the dénouement to miss their last trains and omnibuses.
     The tone of Russian fiction is depressing, and, in this respect, Mr. Robert Buchanan has fully caught the spirit of his author. The Sixth Commandment is a story of crime and expiation. While Fedor Ivanovitch, the young Socialist, sees his sweetheart, with her mother, steeped to the lips in poverty and insulted by the overtures of the wealthy profligate, Prince Zosimoff, a money lender crosses his path with taunting and bitter words on his tongue. In a paroxysm of rage he strangles this miserable creature, a character, by the way, cleverly embodied by Mr. de Lange, and all too soon disposed of. Instantly he is overwhelmed with remorse, and, to add to his distress of mind, he finds himself, by the death of a relative, raised to a position of affluence and social consideration. To his sweetheart he returns with wealth in his hand, only to find that she has meanwhile yielded to the tempter, and his disgust with the world is further increased by the discovery that some wretched, poverty-stricken being, tired of life, has given himself up to the police as the perpetrator of the murder. This being so, it is not surprising to find that Fedor Ivanovitch makes a confession of his crime under circumstances which, if they do not immediately lead to his arrest, place him at all events in the power of his enemy, Prince Zosimoff, and that this heartless, selfish profligate, a fine specimen of what M. Daudet calls the “struggle-for-lifeur,” turns the fact to account by coercing Fedor’s sister into giving him her hand. There is here a considerable amount of dramatic suggestion. Unfortunately, it is not of an interesting, still less of an enlivening, kind, and what, perhaps, is still more fatal, the only possible solution to the dramatic problem so raised is not of a character to stir the public sympathy. Fedor Ivanovitch is sent to Siberia, and with him, on one pretext or another, go all the principal dramatis personæ. Thanks to this circumstance, Prince Zosimoff, still pursuing his evil courses, falls into Fedor Ivanovitch’s power. The young man could kill him like a dog, but he refrains; he feels that he has still to expiate his crime. Not of this opinion, however, are the authorities of St. Petersburg, for an unconditional pardon is sent to him, while by the same turn of fortune’s wheel his arch enemy is laid by the heels. At least a story of this cast ought to point some moral, but The Sixth Commandment has none, unless it be that murder is sometimes to be condoned. It would be difficult to name a more unsatisfactory piece of work than this play from any point of view, whether moral or practical. Mr. Lewis Waller enacts the sombre-minded and somewhat enigmatical hero with much point and vigour, and he has sympathetic associates in Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis as the sister and Miss E. Robins as the sweetheart, both victims of Prince Zosimoff’s unbridled passions. This last-named personage is rendered with the necessary degree of gentlemanly brutality by Mr. Herbert Waring, while M. Marius is the indispensable chief of police. No acting, however, could save the play from its all-pervading air of unreality and melodramatic bombast; and the new management of this theatre will doubtless find it to their advantage to change the bill as soon as may be.

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The Morning Post (9 October, 1890)

SHAFTESBURY THEATRE.
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     Mr. Robert Buchanan is a prolific dramatic author, and he is as bold and unconventional as he is industrious. Probably he is the only writer for the stage at the present day who would have chosen “The Sixth Commandment” as the title and the subject of his new play, in five acts, produced for the first time last night by Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis, who, now Mr. Willard’s term has expired, returns to her own theatre to take the management and to appear as a prominent personage in Mr. Buchanan’s drama. It is a story of Russian life, the action taking place in St. Petersburg and Siberia. The author has, in dealing with Russian scenes, not chosen a Nihilist plot as the groundwork, and for that we are grateful. Something too much has been made of Nihilism on the modern stage, and but for the local colour introduced and the names of the characters the plot might have been laid in another country. But there are some features distinctively Russian in the story, and these Mr. Buchanan has used for dramatic purposes with some effect. The play opens in a street on the banks of the Neva. Other scenes of high and low life are introduced in St. Petersburg, and then the action is transferred to Siberia. The story relates to a murder committed by a young nobleman of St. Petersburg, and the incidents resulting therefrom show in what manner the crime is brought to light, while the pathetic portion is that in which the high-born murderer makes what atonement he can for his offence. We find him in the opening scene a student in St. Petersburg. He is in distress and in love, and he learns that the young girl he loves has been lured from her home by a titled libertine, Prince Zosimoff. She has gone to the prince’s palace in the hope of gaining money for her mother, the wife of a drunken drosky-driver. The student, driven to despair, seeks to induce a money-lender to advance a small sum upon his sister’s miniature. In doing so he learns that the wretch is in the pay of the Prince, and in a fit of mad passion he clutches the usurer by the throat with such violence that he is strangled. A moment after his friend brings him news of the death of a wealthy relative, and he flies frantically from the scene a rich and titled man, but a murderer. In the second act Fedor, the student, is seen in the house of Prince Zosimoff, where he learns that a man has been arrested for the murder, and in a conversation with the Chief of Police Fedor tells of a theory he has respecting the crime. The police official laughs at him, but the Prince is more acute. He at once suspects Fedor to be the murderer, and, having formerly loved his sister, he informs her of his views, and promises to save her brother if she will marry him. In the third act there is a double scene, where the Prince, in company with Anna, overhears Fedor confess to his old sweetheart that he was really guilty of the crime. Poor Liza had already told him how she had been betrayed by the Prince. It was a painful but undoubtedly a powerful situation, and it aroused the audience to enthusiasm. The hero exclaims, “There is dust and ashes on your head, and blood on mine,” and the climax of stage despair seemed to have been reached. Anna consents to accept the Prince to save her brother, but he confesses his guilt rather than an innocent man should suffer, and is sent to Siberia. His heroism in rescuing some miners causes him to be pardoned by the Czar, and the lovers are reunited. The story is strong in one or two situations, but the drama, as a whole, is overweighted with misery, horror, and gloom. Before the close it had become repellant to the audience, and the final verdict was unfavourable. Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis played Anna with great earnestness and pathos, especially in the scene where the unhappy girl hears her brother’s confession. Again, in her refusal of the Prince, the actress was dignified and impressive. Miss Marion Lea appeared as Sophia, a pretty, capricious girl, in love with an Englishman. Miss Lea, by her bright and animated action, imparted the few gleams of gaiety that shone upon the sombre drama. Miss Elizabeth Robins displayed much intensity as the betrayed girl Liza, but the recital of the terrible wrong she had suffered was heard with a shudder by the audience, and in such a character the ability of Miss Robins made the story all the more distressing. Mr. Lewis Waller represented the student Fedor Ivanovitch, and upon his shoulders fell the chief burden of the play. In the scene where he told the story of the murder he gave a psychological interest to the incident which was effective. Mr. Herbert Waring played Prince Zosimoff with the finish and coolness requisite in portraying a character absolutely diabolical. Mr. William Herbert as the Englishman, Arthur Merrion, had a part for which he was well fitted, his manly and frank style being agreeably employed. M. Marius, as Arcadius Snaminski, makes of that personage a quaint character as a Chief of Police not wanting in good feeling. When the curtain fell the author appeared on the stage, but the greeting he received was not complimentary, nor is it likely that “The Sixth Commandment” will be added to the list of Mr. Buchanan’s successes.

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The Echo (9 October, 1890)

SHAFTESBURY THEATRE.
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     Once more has Mr. Robert Buchanan’s active pen been busy in supplying a new play; this time for the theatre which re-opened last night under the nominal management of Mr. Lancaster, but really of Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis—better known, perhaps, as Miss Wallis. The author has obtained his plot from Fedor Dostoieffsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment,” a work which has already been dramatised by French adaptors, their play, Le Crime et le Châtiment, having been produced at the Odéon, in Paris, some two years ago. The novel, in addition to being a psychological study of the working of conscience, is Zolaesque (save that it is not coarse) in laying bare some of the plague spots of Russian bureaucracy—and its heroine, though driven by Fate to become an outcast, remains pure in soul, and by her influence and teachings works out the redemption of the man she loved. From the materials at his command Mr. Buchanan has evolved a play, which, though possessing some powerful scenes and well-drawn characters and some excellent dialogue, is depressing from its length, and which ends in a manner to which we should scarcely have expected a practised playwright would have committed himself. The plot turns on a murder committed by a poor student Fedor Ivanovitch. In a fit of uncontrolled passion at the discovery that Liza, a low-born girl whom he loved, has been made a victim to the lusts of Prince Zosimoff, through the machinations of his pander Abramoff, an old usurer, Fedor strangles the latter. No sooner has he committed the crime than conscience awakened within him, and he is a prey to remorse. By a sudden turn of the wheel of Fortune, Fedor becomes rich, the change in his circumstances does away with the necessity for the marriage of his sister Anna with the Prince, to which she had only consented on account of the poverty of her family. The Prince, however, admiring her beauty, is determined to gain his ends, and almost forces her into a marriage by the threat that, unless she gives herself to him, he will hand her brother over to justice. Fedor learns from Zosimoff why Anna will sacrifice herself, so partly to save his sister and partly through the influence of Liza’s teachings, who had entreated him to take the first steps towards regaining his peace of mind by confession, he declares himself a criminal. He is sent to the salt mines as a convict. Liza follows him, and they find favour with the Governor Snaminski. Anna and her lover Alexis go to Siberia, to be near Fedor. Zosimoff tracks them, convinced that there he will be able to work his will on Anna—for he is all powerful, and the Government officials will not dare to interfere with anything he may do. Anna naturally repulses all his overtures, and he has just ordered her the knout, when he is himself condemned to a life in Siberia, “by order of the Czar.” Fedor is pardoned in consequence of having saved the Governor’s life, and we are left to suppose that he considers he has worked out the atonement for his crime and undergone his chastisement, and will have in Liza a wife who, sullied in the eyes of the world, yet remained pure, and who was the first to point out to him the enormity of his sin and lead him to repentance. The only approach to anything laughable throughout the play is the dry humour of Snaminski, a councillor and police superintendent, capitally played by Mons. Marius, and the flirting propensities of Sophia Orenberg with Arthur Merrion—a cynical, but amusing, Englishman, her lover—well filled by Miss Marion Lea and Mr. William Herbert. A clever though rather ridiculous, character is that of General Skobeloff, “the hero of Sebastopol,” an amorous and deaf warrior, of whom Mr. Ivan Watson gave a good sketch. Mr. Lewis Waller has not done anything better than his impersonation of Fedor Ivanovitch, a difficult part to play, but one which he has completely mastered. Another excellent performance was that of Miss E. Robins, as Liza; it was so natural, innocent, and modest. Mr. Herbert Waring gave a vivid and powerful representation of the heartless, sensual, and unbelieving Prince Zosimoff. Miss Wallis was tender, pathetic, and heart-stirring as Anna, her depiction of the agony of mind she suffered when swayed between the desire to save her brother and her abhorrence at the proposed marriage displayed much power. Smaller parts were well filled by Mr. Reginald Stockton, Miss Maude Brennan, and Mr. C. Arnold. The scenery is exquisite, the dresses very rich, and Mr. Arthur E. Godfrey has arranged some appropriate music, which sometimes, however, might with advantage have been omitted. M. Marius’s stage management was excellent, save for rather long waits. If acting would assure the success of a play, The Sixth Commandment should have a run, but it requires much curtailment. The final verdict was not altogether favourable.

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The Jewish Chronicle (10 October, 1890 - p.7)

“THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.”

     From the Jewish standpoint there is a serious blot on the new romantic play by Mr. Robert Buchanan, which under the above title was produced on Wednesday at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Modern playwrights seem to find it difficult to keep Jewish money lenders out of their dramas. These creations, while generally obnoxious, are obviously such gross caricatures that while they make us angry we can still afford to laugh. It has been reserved for Mr. Buchanan to give us in Abramoff, a St. Petersburg usurer, a creature of so despicable a character that much harm would be done to the Jewish cause in Russia were he to be accepted as a type of the Jews in that country. He is a relentless usurer, a heartless landlord, and to crown all he lures a poor girl to the palace of his patron, Prince Zosimoff. It is fortunate that the exciting incidents of the drama prevent the spectator from giving too much attention to this gross libel on the Jews, and that through his murder Abramoff disappears early from the scene. An incident immediately following on the discovery of the dead body is a glaring incongruity. Abramoff is a Jew, but when a crowd assembles on the alarm being given of his assassination, the duty of praying over the corpse is assigned to some Priests of the Orthodox Church, who happen to be conveniently at hand, and a dirge of the church is sung for the dead. Of more questionable taste is the appearance of Mr. H. de Lange, himself a Jew, in the character of the scoundrel Abramoff. Mr. Buchanan’s serious plays are mostly written with a purpose. We can almost forgive him, therefore, fro creating such a villain as Abramoff, on account of the light—so timely now when Russian affairs are to the fore—he throws on the barbarities practised by Russian officials on the unfortunate wretches who are deported to Siberia and on the licentiousness prevailing in the upper circles of Russian society. Through the mouth of an attaché to the British Embassy, he declares that although the Czar and his Government may silence the people, they cannot prevent the expressions of free thought and horror from other lands penetrating even into Russia.     The principal characters are admirably played by Mrs. Lancaster (Miss Wallis), Mr. Lewis Waller, Mr. Herbert Waring, M. Marius, Mr. William Herbert and Miss Marion Lea, and Miss Cowen renders good service in a minor part. The piece is splendidly mounted, the furniture and appointments are specially made for the production by Mr. James S. Lyon, of Holborn, and the uniforms by Messrs. L. and H. Nathan, of Coventry Street.

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The Jewish Standard (10 October, 1890 - p.11)

     “The Sixth Commandment,” produced last Wednesday night at the Shaftesbury is not, I hope, to be followed by the other items of the Decalogue. For in that case I shall (as a dramatic critic bien entendu) have to trample on them all. “The Sixth Commandment” is a dull, gloomy piece, and in spite of its teaching it is likely to result in the murder of Mr. Robert Buchanan by
                                                                        MARSHALLIK.

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The Era (11 October, 1890 - Issue 2716)
[Note: Due to a poor quality scan, there are a few slight gaps towards the end of this review.]

THE LONDON THEATRES.
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THE SHAFTESBURY.
On Wednesday, Oct. 8th, for the First Time,
a New Romantic Play, in Five Acts, by Robert Buchanan,
called
“THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.”

Prince Zosimoff         ...     Mr HERBERT WARING
Arcadius Snaminski   ...     M. MARIUS
General Skobeloff     ...     Mr IVAN WATSON
Fedor Ivanovitch       ...     Mr LEWIS WALLER
Alexis Alexandrovitch        Mr REGINALD STOCKTON
General Wolenski      ...     Mr W. RUSSELL
Arthur Merrion          ...     Mr WILLIAM HERBERT
Moustoff                   ...     Mr M. BYRNES
Kriloff Kriloffski        ...     Mr GEORGE SELDON
Petrovitch                  ...     Mr G. FANE
Father Abramoff        ...     Mr DE LANGE
Landlord                    ...    Mr HERBERTE BASING
Sergeant of Cossacks        Mr C. LANDER
Sergeant of Police      ...     Mr F. H. MORTON
Ivan                           ...     Mr H. BAYNTUN
The Princess Orenburg       Mrs RICHARDSON
Sophia                       ...     Miss MARION LEA
Pulcheria Ivanovna     ...     Miss COWEN
Anna                          ...     Mrs LANCASTER-WALLIS
Catherine Petroska     ...     Miss MAUDE BRENNAN
Liza                            ...     Miss E. ROBINS
Katel                          ...     Miss C. BERNARD
Marfa                         ...     Miss J. ST. ANGE

     Mr Buchanan’s statement, printed on the programmes presented at the Shaftesbury Theatre on Wednesday evening last, that he had, in his new drama, merely “utilised certain suggestions” in Dostoïevsky’s curious novel, “Crime et Châtiment,” was perfectly accurate. There is as little, indeed, in common between Dostoïevsky’s Rodion and Mr Buchanan’s Fedor Ivanovitch as there is kinship between the characters of the seduced, but sympathetic, Liza of the play and that of the little street-walker, Sonia, of the novel. Mr Buchanan has merely taken the Russian tale as a start-point, and has dashed boldly away from it into a career which is fairly exciting in the middle, but which dies away all to nothing at the end. That there is a public at the West end for the more finished and probable sort of melodrama has already been proved, but audiences of a certain degree of enlightenment are more exacting in their demands than an Adelphi pit or an Elephant and Castle gallery, and, like Quentin Durward, do not like “being borne in hand like a child” by an author who presumes too much upon their want of sense and information. The Sixth Commandment falls between two stools. It is too straggling and “talky” to be popular, and too crudely theatrical to be praised. It must be stated, however, that the play is a very uneven one, and that its three first acts are conventionally effective. The first opens in St. Petersburg, where we find Fedor Ivanovitch, a poor student, meditating bitterly over the maxim that “gold buys everything.” He knows that his sister Anna is about to be sacrificed to Mammon in the person of the dissolute Prince Zosimoff; and he also sees Liza, the daughter of a drunken droshky-driver, sorely tempted to accept the disgraceful offers of the Prince for the sake of obtaining food for her starving mother and sister. In his overwrought condition, the callous and cynical remarks of Father Abramoff, an old money-lender, so excite him that he pushes the old man into the passage of his own house and strangles him. An alarm is raised. Fedor is not suspected; but receives, only too late, the news that a relative has died leaving him a fortune.
     In the second act, in the Salon of the Princess Orenburg, Fedor, now a Count, is mixing in high society with his mother and sister. The subject of Abramoff’s murder crops up, and Fedor cannot restrain himself from a hysterical tirade which excites the suspicions of Zosimoff. The latter, after ascertaining that Anna intends to break off the engagement made between them, tells her that her brother is the murderer of Abramoff, and that unless she marry him (Zosimoff) he will denounce Fedor to the police. This is the climax of the second act. The third takes place in the interior of a common lodging-house, to which Zosimoff brings Anna to convince her of her brother’s guilt. He takes her into an apartment next to that of Liza Petroska, who has been seduced by Zosimoff, but has fled from his palace at the first opportunity. Fedor visits Liza; and, after she has told him of her shame, he confesses his crime to her in the hearing of his sister, who falls fainting as the curtain descends.
     So far the play, despite certain obnoxious matters of detail, is interesting and effective. But the promise of the earlier acts is not fulfilled in those which follow. There is much “see-sawing” and going over the ground again in the fourth, which ends in Fedor, sooner than let his sister be sacrificed, owning to having murdered Abramoff, and being taken off to that region useful to the melodramatist, Siberia. The piece now degenerates into transpontine melodrama. Everyone comes to the military outpost, where soldiers in sheepskin caps chaff their commander, and act as “whippers-in” to a pack of howling, growling convicts. Zosimoff threatens Anna with personal assault, and dares her to fire at him with a revolver which she has got possession of. She shoots at the prince but misses. Fedor dashes in, and casts him to the earth, and all difficulties are overcome by the arrival of two documents from the Czar—a free pardon for Fedor and a sentence of perpetual imprisonment for Prince Zosimoff, an easy, but somewhat arbitrary, method of ending the play happily. Such minor absurdities as a chief of police, who is ordered about like a puppy, and who takes snubs and insults like a lamb, a lunatic who accuses himself of the crime committed by Ivanovitch, and a procession of Greek priests, who, unlike our English police, are on the spot at the middle of the night immediately when wanted, need not, perhaps, be dwelt upon. If Mr Buchanan were to rewrite the two latter acts of The Sixth Commandment so as to make them close and thrilling the piece might then do well in the provinces; but we fear that, in any case, there is little chance of its success at the Shaftesbury.
     This is the more to be regretted, as the work put into the production, both in the way of acting and mounting, was remarkably good. We have rarely seen a better interior than the lemon-yellow salon of the Princess Orenburg in the second act, and the Gardens of the Palace Taurida in the third formed an equally effective set. The ladies’ dresses were tasteful, pretty, and appropriate, and the play had evidently been carefully rehearsed, and , thanks to the excellent stage-management of M. Marius, went almost without a hitch. The best performance of the evening was undoubtedly Mr Herbert Waring’s Prince Zosimoff. He managed to hit the happy medium in delineating the accomplished villain, and gave to his impersonation sufficient repulsiveness without neglecting the “society” side of the character. M. Marius in the absurd and uncongenial rôle of the impossible police official already referred to could do no more than raise an occasional laugh, and Mr Ivan Watson made General Skobeloff an officer of opera bouffe. Mr Lewis Waller’s style suited the character of Fedor Ivanovitch well, and he put much power into his rendering of the rôle, acting throughout with a sustained energy which was worthy of warm praise, and occasionally rising to a high histrionic level. Mr Reginald Stockton was acceptable as Alexis Alexandrovitch. Mr William Herbert and Miss Marion Lea as a couple of those comedy lovers so detested by the new school of realism, acted extremely well, and were as amusing as their parts would permit; and Mr de Lange’s villainous exultation as the pander and pawnbroker Abramoff was graphic and effective. Miss Cowen made an agreeable and affectionate Pulcheria Ivanovna, and looked extremely well in the part; and Mrs Richardson was, in manner, speech, and bearing, an excellent representative of the Princess Orenburg. Mrs Lancaster-Wallis had a part which suited her exactly in that of Anna, and sustained it with accomplished skill and cultivated power. In the scenes with Zosimoff in the second act, and in the interview with the Prince in the third, she depicted the varying emotions which swayed the unhappy girl in a manner which deeply thrilled and [...] interested her audience. Miss Maude Brennan took full advantage of her brief opportunity as Catherine Petroska. A charming performance was Miss E. Robins [...] tender in tone, yet at times rising to a [...] of emotional and histrionic merit. Entirely [...]with sweetness and sympathy, [...] performance was decidedly noteworthy. Of the minor rôles, that of a cringing lodging-house keeper was well sustained by Mr Herberte Basing, and Miss J. St. Ange neatly represented the domestic servant, Marfa. Mr Buchanan was called before the curtain at the close of the performance, but the mixed reception which greeted him augured doubtfully for the future success of his work.

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Reynolds’s Newspaper (12 October, 1890 - Issue 2096)

PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS.
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SHAFTESBURY THEATRE.

     Under the fantastical title of “The Sixth Commandment”—“Thou shalt do no murder”—the prolific Mr. Robert Buchanan, on Wednesday evening, produced a play at the Shaftesbury Theatre, which is distinguished by all the knowledge of stagecraft, and marred by all the dramatic faults peculiar to this author. The idea of the piece is taken from the most Œschylean of modern novels—Th. Doskoievsky’s “Le Crime et Le Châtiment”—Crime and Punishment. An adaptation of the novel in French was produced some time ago at the Odéon Theatre, but it had no considerable success. Indeed, it is doubtful whether that great tragedy could be presented in such a form on the stage as to win approval from any beyond an eclectic circle. The mind of the ordinary playgoer is not familiar with those profound depths of the human character; it resents being called upon to take sides in the philosophy of social phenomena. If any corroboration of this assertion were required, it may be found in the cold reception accorded to Henrik Ibsen’s plays, which deal with the contemporary problems of society. Where Mr. Buchanan departs from the plot of Doskoievsky he has not effected an improvement. In the first place, his hero does not really commit a murder. His victim is not intended to be killed; he is throttled, and dies under the process. This imperfect start gives a false ring to all the subsequent exuberance of repentance indulged in by Fedor Ivanovitch. And, were it not so, Mr. Buchanan makes him an untrue and mawkish fellow, who, reciting pessimistic theories, and quoting Schopenhauer that the world is essentially corrupt, and that the devil is its Prince, goes about maundering of God, and redemption, and atonement, after the involuntary slaying, consummating the absurdity by falling on his knees at the drop of the curtain, weakly and dolorously declaring that, though man might forgive him, he could not expect the forgiveness of the Almighty. This is all false sentiment, false theology, false art. The author might have been warned by the reception of the intensely ridiculous incident of the roué in his “Struggle for Life,” at the Avenue Theatre, who similarly falls on his knees to ask pardon from God. Mr. Buchanan seems to pigeon-hole his bathos, and to expose it at intervals on the stage as a trader does his wares. Those who have read “Le Crime et le Châtiment” will remember that the story turns upon the murder of an old female usurer by an impecunious Russian student. He slays for money, and he does not repent. Mr. Buchanan’s Fedor kills a doddering old male money-lender, because he asserts that everything and everybody can be bought for gold, including Liza Petroska, an humble girl whom Fedor loves, and whom poverty actually does impel to sell herself to Prince Zosimoff, a notorious scoundrel. Doskoievsky’s hero continually argues, “What was the use of the life of that wretched old woman? It was rather a virtue to put an end to an existence so unworthy.” Hear how the Russian novelist makes Fedor talk about his crime. “‘Why should my conduct appear so repulsive?’ he asked himself. ‘Because it is a crime? What signifies the word crime? My conscience is at rest. Without doubt I have committed an illicit act. I have violated the letter of the law and spilt blood. Very well, then; take my head; voilà tout!’” There is a character with dramatic consistency—one who does not rave about Schopenhauer and deny God in the first act, and for most of the remainder of the play snivel about the moral law which he has offended. Instead of naming his play “The Sixth Commandment,” Mr. Buchanan ought to have called it “Crime and Repentance.” The character of Fedor Ivanovitch, of course, overshadows the other personages in his mimic world. These, however, are the sombre, albeit unconscious, weavers of his destiny. He slays Father Abramoff, the money lender, for the sake of Liza; he accuses himself of the crime that his sister Anna Ivanovna may not sacrifice herself in marriage to Prince Zosimoff, who alone knows his guilt; his crime, even , is committed two or three minutes before he learns that from abject poverty he has been raised to affluence by the death of a relative. This part was played by Mr. Lewis Waller with a tragic intensity of passion, for which there can be no word but praise. Mr. Herbert Waring, by the very force of his talent, gave life to the colourless part of Prince Zosimoff. M. Marius made a comic, and altogether impossible Head of Police, for which the author, and not the actor, is to blame. M. De Lange as the money-lender shook himself free from the trammels of the traditional stage Jew, and gave a powerfully realistic rendering of the character. The Liza Petroska of Miss E. Robins was a performance of exceptional merit, far above the hysterical, sentimental, commonplace, odious female to whom we are so often treated in such characters. Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis at times was good as Anna Ivanovna. There is a little stiffness, however, in her performance, doubtless due to nervousness. To arouse our entire sympathy, the part must be more subtily played. Miss Marian Lea, bright, attractive, and winning as she is, does not surely suppose that the manners of the daughter of a Russian princess are not those of a skipping romp? The student, Alexis Alexandrovitch, was weakly played by Mr. Reginald Stockton; and Mr. William Herbert’s Arthur Merrion, an attaché of the British Embassy at St. Petersburg, was rather conventional. The unnamed performers will require a little more drilling to make their stage pictures effective, notably so in the fifth act, where the behaviour of the prisoners and soldiers borders on the ridiculous. The play is too long, and, as usual with Mr. Buchanan, the last act, which ought to summarize with brief and graphic touches, is intolerably spun out. Like a good deal of the author’s recent work, this piece bears marks of haste; but it has in it undeniably the elements of popularity. The events which it depicts would be mostly impossible in the Russia of to-day, where students are not allowed to go about spouting Socialism and Revolution to policemen. In the first act there was an effective picture of St. Petersburgh and the Neva at night, by Mr. Walter Hann. The performers should consider whether it does not mar the illusion to appear before the curtain between the acts in a tragedy.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (14 October, 1890 - Issue 7978)

     What is the “question” which Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis proposes to put to the Shaftesbury audience on Saturday next? Presumably, it will have some connection with the latest dramatic “fizzle”—“The Sixth Commandment.” But what is the object of thus “heckling” the unfortunate playgoers who will have sat through one of the dreariest productions of the year? Claptrap notions of this kind, coupled with sensational advertisements, never yet turned a bad piece into a good one, or enabled a manager to postpone the evil day to any appreciable extent. Besides this, in all probability Mr. Buchanan, as an able and prudent man, will be only too anxious to bury the memory of this unworthy melodrama as speedily as possible.

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The Jewish Chronicle (17 October, 1890 - p.9)

MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN ON THE JEWS.

     Mr. Robert Buchanan writes that the money-lender Abramoff in his play of “Russia as it is,” is not a Jew. “He is called Abramoff, but if that makes a Jew of him, then Abraham Lincoln was a Jew also. At the first performance of my play, the leading actor, by a slip of the tongue, did once use the word ‘Jew’ as applied to Abramoff, and hence, I presume, the outcry against myself. But those who know me and my opinions need scarcely be assured that I hold the Hebrew race and the Hebrew religion in the highest honour: that I prefer a good Jew to a bad Christian; and that I reverence and love the Jewish character as typified in the great leaders of human thought, from Moses down to Heine.”

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The Graphic (18 October, 1890 - Issue 1090)

     THE gloomy pessimism which seems to weigh upon all things Russian—at least in the realm of fiction—assumes a rather oppressive form in Mr. Buchanan’s new play at the SHAFTESBURY Theatre. For the starting point of The Sixth Commandment the author has gone to Dostoïevsky’s celebrated novel which furnished the theme of the drama entitled Crime et Châtiment, brought out at the Odéon Theatre in Paris about two years ago. In deference, however, to the tastes of English audiences, Mr. Buchanan has shrunk from presenting Dostoïevsky’s hero as the apologist for murder, and has reduced his crime to little more than a case of justifiable homicide. As a consequence, the psychological element has disappeared, and we have nothing but a melodrama which, except the excessive tendency of the dramatist to multiply repulsive incidents and crowd his canvas with odious personages, bears a strong resemblance to the sort of romantic plays to which audiences in the suburban theatres have long been accustomed. Five acts in which tremendous doings are set forth in such prodigal abundance are a little too much for the patience of spectators not broken in to Mr. Buchanan’s Titanic methods. The play has now, we understand, been contracted, but on the first night the expressions of impatience and dissatisfaction which were heard during the progress and at the conclusion of the last act were only too easy to be explained. The result is unfortunate for Mrs. Lancaster Wallis, who has commenced her management of the Shaftesbury with great spirit and liberality, and who plays the part of the heroine, Anna, in Mr. Buchanan’s piece with a degree of force and concentration which in itself is very impressive. The play is indeed extremely well acted. Mr. Herbert Waring imparts to the cynical and unscrupulous profligate Prince Zosimoff as much reality perhaps as is profitable in the portrayal of such an incarnation of depravity; Mr. Marius, as the indispensable Russian Minister of Police, contrives to light up the sombre picture with occasional flashes of humour; and Miss Marion Lea and Mr. Herbert, as a couple who conduct a courtship in a playful fashion, lend some aid in the same direction. To Mr. Lewis Waller falls the thankless task of playing the Russian novelist’s student hero in his mitigated condition. What consistency and truth it is capable of he may be said to have given to it. Splendidly mounted and thus played, it will not be the fault of actors or management if The Sixth Commandment fails to take a permanent hold upon the public favour.

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The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post (18 October, 1890 - Issue 13240)

     The all-conquering Mr Robert Buchanan has received a check in his version of Dostoieffsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” which he calls “The Sixth Commandment,” and which was produced by Mrs Lancaster Wallis on Thursday, at the Shaftesbury Theatre. The “Observer” says:—The brutal crime for which the hero, Fedor Ivanovitch, suffers the punishment of hysterical remorse dwindles down into something very like justifiable homicide. The young man himself is so crazy a creature, with his Socialist spoutings, his aimless passion, and his high-faluting sentiment, that no psychological interest whatever can attach to the reaction which sets in on his sudden accession to wealth and rank at the very moment when he realises himself a murderer. Fedor has no doubt strangled the Jew Abramoff, but only on discovering the old pander’s share in the dishonour of his humble sweetheart, Liza. The crime, such as it is, does not seem likely to sit very heavy on the soul of a desperate youth like this, and it would be far more natural if his remorse were swallowed up in the fierce desire to slay the seducer as well as his tool. As a matter of fact, however, Fedor succeeds by his nervous weakness in furnishing the wicked Prince Zosimoff with a hold over him so powerful that he can secure his personal safety only by sacrificing his sister Anna to the caprice of the omnipotent despot. The situation thus reached is undeniably a powerful one, but Mr Buchanan spoils it by repeating it again and again with trifling variations. The most showy of the repetitions—that in which Zosimoff causes Anna to overhear from an adjoining room her brother’s confession to Liza of his crime—hardly bears thinking about, for the success of the villain’s strategy depends upon his prophetic knowledge of his adversaries’ unlikeliest proceedings. The final defeat of the bold bad man, just when an ill-won victory over persecuted virtue appears to be well within his grasp, is brought about by a providence even more perfunctory than that which generally watches over the victims of stage villainy. “By order of the Czar,” but on no particular charge, the hitherto omnipotent prince is suddenly condemned to imprisonment in Siberia, whither he has betaken himself with a view of gloating over the fall of his enemy. At the same time Fedor receives a full pardon for his crime.

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The Echo (20 October, 1890 - p.1)

THEATRICAL GOSSIP.

     Well-wishers of that charming actress Mrs. Lancaster, in whose ranks we may safely include the entire regular play-going public of London, experienced an evil quarter of an hour on Saturday night, or at least such of them as went to the Shaftesbury Theatre. During the week a notice had been circulated freely in the papers that the fair manageress would ask a question. Seeing that, though on Mrs. Lancaster herself the critics have rightly lavished every praise, acknowledging her much improved acting, admiring the artistic self-abnegation with which she has distributed the plum-róles of the piece, granting her discrimination as shown in its casting, and loudly conceding homage for beautiful mounting and staging, they have with practical unanimity been unable to approve the play, Mr. Buchanan’s Sixth Commandment; it was, therefore, greatly feared that the question would be an unwise appeal from the verdict of the whole body of London’s dramatic critics and a first night audience to the public as represented by a special theatrefull of persons. The worst fears were realised. After brilliantly sustaining her part in an improved, because shortened, play, Mrs. Lancaster timidly advanced to the footlights, confessed that during the week the audiences had been mediocre, and practically asked her friends in front whether the present play should continue. The answer, it may be imagined under the circumstances, was in accordance with the actress’s wishes. In point of fact, too much so. Certain persons in the pit and gallery fired a volley of abuse, individual and otherwise, at the dramatic critics; and Mrs. Lancaster unexpectedly found herself obliged to pronounce a very pretty little homily on the qualified utility of her friends the enemy. This was the reduction to absurdity of a scene which should have been rehearsed to have achieved even the success of a moment.

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     Mrs. Lancaster has won the goodwill of all her talents admit of no denial, she has a beautiful theatre of her own, and plenty of money to give effect to her strong desire to do everything well, moreover, she has several promising plays up her sleeve; but she has produced a play not generally popular. Why persist? Why stir up animus and partisanship? Why throw the bright future after the indifferent present? Why kick against the pricks? To produce a good drama by a young and unknown writer would be a veritable triumph, or to mount a new play by one of our two or three popular dramatists would be a step towards certain success

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     Mr. Buchanan, who is responsible for The Sixth Commandment as it appears in English, has also fought for his own hand in a morning contemporary. Many years ago that lucid and poetic critic, Mr. E. C. Stedman, wrote of this gentleman: “His critical prose writings are marked by eloquence and vigour; but those of a polemical order have, I should opine, entailed upon him more vexation than profit.” If Mr. Buchanan were only of his American admirer’s opinion!

[Note:
The front page of this edition of The Echo also included an article about Buchanan which is available in the Buchanan and the Press section.]

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The Times (20 October, 1890 - p.4)

THE THEATRES.

     For some days it was announced that on Saturday night Miss Wallis would “put a question” to the audience at the Shaftesbury Theatre, where Mr. Robert Buchanan’s romantic drama The Sixth Commandment is being performed. Accordingly, on the fall of the curtain on Saturday night Miss Wallis came forward and said the matter she had to submit to the public was this:—Mr. Buchanan’s play had been subjected to a certain amount of criticism in some quarters, and she wished to know whether the public liked it, and whether it ought to be continued in the bill. Shouts of “Yes” went up in reply, and some little disorder ensued, in the midst of which Miss Wallis retired, apparently satisfied with the result of her experiment.

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Birmingham Daily Post (20 October, 1890 - Issue 10085)

LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.
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                                       LONDON. Sunday Night.

...

     The question which Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis (Miss Wallis) put, as had been advertised, to her audience at the close of last night’s performance of “The Sixth Commandment,” at the Shaftesbury, was, as had been expected, whether the run of the play should be continued. The answer was polite, and to a certain degree satisfactory; but the real reply has to be given by other audiences than that of last night. Abbreviation may make a poor play less unsatisfactory, but it cannot transform it into a good one; and, as a fact, the talents of Miss Wallis and such admirable colleagues as Miss Robins, Mr. Waring, and Mr. Waller are wasted upon the piece. The example set by Mr. George Alexander, at the Avenue, in deferring to the popular verdict upon one of Mr. Buchanan’s latest adaptations may, therefore, be fairly followed in the case of the other.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (21 October, 1890 - Issue 7984)

STAGE AND SONG.

     In his attempt to lead the public to believe that his latest play is a work worthy of their most earnest consideration, Mr. Robert Buchanan has fairly out-Buchananised himself. We all know the author of “The Sixth Commandment,” and his rough sledge hammer methods. We are all acquainted with his unaccountable readiness to rush to the tourney, and break a lance with any one and every one on any and every conceivable subject under the sun. But who would have imagined that even this universal provider, this literary Whiteley, would be bold enough to champion the cause of the unsatisfactory and uninteresting play which now holds the boards at the Shaftesbury theatre? Yet so it is. Mr. Buchanan has thought fit to pour down upon the innocent pages of the Daily Chronicle a column of virtuous indignation, in which he inveighs freely against the critics and the audience who failed to recognize in “The Sixth Commandment,” on its production, a work of high literary and dramatic merit. Every one, apparently, was wrong on the first night. The play bored us to distraction; but our weariness was caused by our extraordinary lack of appreciation of the beauties which its author now points out to us.
     Here are a few specimen counts in Mr. Buchanan’s indictment of the critics:—

     Then comes the whole series of perversions, as illustrated in my own case. because a play is strong and gloomy it is a coarse Coburg melodrama, a production quite unfit for educated people to witness; because it represents things as they really are, it is a vulgar catalogue of transpontine horrors; because it is not charged with bourgeois sentiment or inflated with Cockney fun, it is dismal and dull; because it bores a jaded appetite, spoiled by Robertsonian lollipops and bob-bons, it is not to the taste of English audiences; and because two or three hired ruffians hoot at the author from the gallery, he has received the condemnation of the great English public.

     What can one say to a dramatist who meets failure in this spirit? “Hired ruffians,” forsooth! If ever a long-suffering and lenient audience were assembled within the walls of a theatre it was the devoted band of playgoers who endured with scarcely a sign of impatience or derision the deadly dreariness of “The Sixth Commandment.” Not till the author—the fons et origo mali—appeared at the end of all things were any sounds indicating marked disapproval audible. That an unfavourable verdict could have been sincerely and honestly recorded is seemingly beyond the range of Mr. Buchanan’s imagination; and so the humble folk in the gallery, who did not like the play and said so when the right moment arrived, are coolly classed as “hired ruffians.” Hired by whom, Mr. Buchanan?
     In truly execrable taste, too, is the writer’s cheap sneer at the “Robertsonian lollipops and bon-bons.” Is not the notion delicious? “Caste,” “Ours,” “School,” and the style of play originated by that bright genius whose light first shone forth from “the little theatre in Tottenham-street,” have spoiled our dramatic appetites and made us turn up our noses in wrongheaded and wilful daintiness at “The Sixth Commandment,” that wholesome dose prescribed for us by Dr. Buchanan. Our conversion, I fear, will not be quickly accomplished, nor shall we immediately elevate Mr. Buchanan to a supreme position among our playwrights merely because he scoffs at the success of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones’s works at the theatre which has witnessed his own discomfiture. Let Mr. Buchanan give us as fine a play as either “The Middleman” or “Judah,” and he will then be entitled to a rather more serious hearing when he tries to force his wares down the throats of the public.
     For Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis I am really sorry. I think she is wrong in persevering with “The Sixth Commandment,” for the simple reason that it is impossible to see how the play can be made genuinely attractive at the Shaftesbury Theatre or elsewhere. At any rate there is no earthly object to be gained by “asking a question” on one particular evening. The Shaftesbury booking-sheet will furnish the only reliable answer to Mrs. Lancaster’s query, and to that document alone should the manageress turn her attention.

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Manchester Times (24 October, 1890 - Issue 1734)

SOCIETY AND THE STAGE.
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[FROM THE LONDON CORRESPONDENCE OF THE
MANCHESTER EXAMINER AND TIMES.]

...

     An extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented incident occurred at the Shaftesbury Theatre on Saturday night, at the fall of the curtain on Mr. Buchanan’s “Sixth Commandment.” The play has been very severely handled by the critics, and it has been defended by the author in his usual slashing style. Its success has been rather dubious, and Miss Wallis on Saturday night came forward and made a little speech in which she asked her “kind friends in front” whether they liked the play, and whether it should be continued. The answer was a very decided affirmative mingled with complimentary and sympathetic ejaculations from the gallery, and a good deal of hearty abuse of critics from the pit.

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The Graphic (25 October, 1890 - Issue 1091)

     Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis’s “question” on Saturday evening at the SHAFTESBURY Theatre has given rise to a great deal of comment. It took the form of an appeal to a crowded house against the unanimous judgment of the critics upon Mr. Buchanan’s new drama of Russian life. “Shall the performance be retained in the programme?” asked the lady; and there was at once a boisterous outbreak of affirmatives from all parts of the theatre. This may be the precursor of a new method of dramatic criticism, but it is just to both parties to say that Mrs. Lancaster-Wallis admitted that The Sixth Commandment, as played on this occasion, was not exactly the play on which the first-night audience sat in judgment. It had, to begin with, been curtailed “by forty minutes,” and the lady was generous enough to confess that the excisions, as well as certain “alterations,” had been made in deference to “the advice of the Press.”

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Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper (26 October, 1890 - p.7)

     One of the many important alterations in The Sixth Commandment is the shortening of the last act and the death of the libertine, Prince Zozimoff. As the play was at first constructed he apparently escaped free; now he is stabbed by Kriloffski, the drosky driver, whose daughter had been a prey to his “caprice.” This instance of poetical justice is a very great improvement to the play. Instead of lasting nearly four hours, the play is now performed in three.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (28 October, 1890 - Issue 7990)

     No, Mr. Buchanan! You are wrong once more. Of course it sounds very modest and convincing when you express an opinion that “The Sixth Commandment” is nearly as good as “Carmen up to Data” and “A Million of Money,” two plays which you suggest the experts pronounced perfect. But I fancy that yet again you have allowed your soaring imagination to carry you beyond the regions of stern fact. If you can demonstrate by the “notices” that the drama now running at Drury Lane was summed up as “perfect” by the critics, I shall be much surprised. As for the current Gaiety burlesque, ask Mr. Henry Pettitt, Mr. George Edwardes, or your collaborator, Mr. George R. Sims, if their ideas on the subject correspond with your own. But, assuming even that you are correct in your statement, would you seriously desire that a play from your pen, of, at least, a somewhat lofty aim, should be measured by the same standard and judged by the same canons of art as the annual combinations of popular elements which each autumn gives us at “Old Drury” and the Temple of the Sacred Lamp? Think it over carefully, Mr. Buchanan, and you will admit—to yourself at any rate—that your words were almost as hasty and ill-judged as any you have written apropos of your latest dramatic production.

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The Theatre (1 November, 1890)

“THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.”

Romantic play, in five acts, written by ROBERT BUCHANAN.
First produced at the Shaftesbury Theatre, Wednesday, October 8, 1890.

     In an “Author’s Note” appearing on the programme, Mr. Buchanan states that he has taken certain suggestions from Dostoievsky’s novel “Crime and Chastisement,” but that he disclaims any endeavour to dramatise the work. And this statement may be thoroughly accepted, for though the main incidents, but slightly altered, take place both in the novel and the play, yet under Mr. Buchanan’s treatment they are but such as have been used in many a melodrama. In the novel Fedor commits a murder on two women, partly to work out a theory of his own, and partly for the sake of plunder; in the play he strangles an old Jew, for having been accessory to the ruin of the girl he loves. In the novel Sonia gives herself to a life on the streets that she may save from starvation her worthless father and hungry family; in the play she is made the unwilling victim of the lust of a Prince. The novel is a study—curiously minute and searching—of the workings of the human heart and brain, and sets forth that a woman may be but a very outcast in the eyes of the world and yet be as pure as snow in her innermost self. The play makes almost an idol of a man who has no ruler but his own strong will, which he enforces under the light definition of caprice, and in the culprit all that is in any way interesting is that, like the young minister in “Judah,” from the moment he commits the crime, although an unbeliever, he has no rest, but hears for ever the voice of conscience ringing in his ears, and only obtains peace when he confesses and makes atonement through the punishment meted out to him. This last character is Fedor Ivanovitch. His sweetheart Liza is beguiled to Prince Zosimoff’s palace by Abramoff, who delivers to her a letter which he knows will bring about her ruin. Fedor discovers this and in his rage seizes the Jew by the throat and, without perhaps intending to do so, strangles him. A prey to remorse, Fedor unwittingly gives Zosimoff the clue by which he can hunt out the murderer—he uses the knowledge gained, to force Anna into a marriage with him; he brings her to an adjoining room to that which Liza occupies that Anna may overhear her brother Fedor’s confession to the young girl that he wants to make his wife. Liza insists that, fallen as she is, she is unfit for him; he tries to prove that he is no better than she is by confessing that he is a murderer. When Fedor learns that Anna will sacrifice herself to a man that she abhors, to prevent him from giving her brother up to justice, he publicly owns to the crime and accepts the consequence in exile to Siberia. In a most improbable manner the author brings all his principal characters to that remote and inhospitable spot (even a young couple on their honeymoon trip). Retributive justice overtakes the Prince. He has followed Anna (to carry out his now shameful designs upon her) but finds that by an “order of the Czar” he is to be stripped of rank and riches and be sent to the mines; whilst Fedor is pardoned and restored to society for having saved the governor Snaminski’s life. Liza is made happy in Fedor’s repentance, for it is she who has first pointed out to him that it was only by confession that he could make his peace with Heaven; and Anna is supposed to marry her lover Alexis. Passing over such a glaring mistake as the rites of the Greek Church being performed in Russia, of all places, over a Jew, there was a fearful waste of words throughout the play, which was prolonged to an inordinate length (later it took nearly one hour less in performance through judicious excision), and the interest was in a great measure lost. It is pleasant to pass from the shortcomings of the play to the excellence of the acting. Miss Wallis, with rare self-denial in a manageress, did not take to herself the best part, but as Anna increased her reputation by her power in depicting agony of mind, and tenderness and affection towards her lover and brother. Miss E. Robins (who is more the heroine) was very sympathetic as the betrayed Liza. The confession of outrage inflicted on her was most delicately conveyed. Mr. Lewis Waller, had a very trying part, as Fedor, and made a distinct advance by his exhibition of remorse, and the workings of a troubled conscience. Mr. Herbert Waring was almost grand in his villainy; it was so thoroughly consistent throughout, and was shown with such quiet force. Miss Marion Lea played the hoyden well, and brightened up the play a little, as did Mr. William Herbert as her lover, and M. Marius as a police official. A good little bit of character acting was that of Mr. Ivan Watson, as a deaf and decrepit general. Miss Maud Brennan and Miss J. St. Ange, were also pleasant in their respective characters. The play was splendidly mounted, and it was not Miss Wallis’s fault, or that of her company, that it was not accepted as a success.

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The Era (1 November, 1890 - Issue 2719)

MISS WALLIS AND THE CRITICS.
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     We sincerely trust that the new departure recently inaugurated by Miss WALLIS at the Shaftesbury Theatre will not be followed by other London managers and manageresses. The practice has about it something feminine and feline which commends it not. The velvet paw of the innocent query, “Do you like the play?” concealed the sharp claws which inflicted the scratch of the implied question, “What do you think of the critics who condemned it?” The wording of Miss WALLIS’S distributed circular was certainly adroit. The preamble was specially ingenious. Miss WALLIS said, alluding to The Sixth Commandment:—“Guided by the advice of the press, which unanimously condemned the play, another piece would have been instantly put in rehearsal, but for one consideration—the applause nightly and what seems very like appreciation of the play on the part of the public.” Miss WALLIS concluded her manifesto by a left-handed compliment to the critics, “whose time, consideration, and forbearance were severely taxed in an unusually long performance on the opening night.”
     On the evening of the 18th inst. Miss WALLIS, in pursuance of an intention announced in the previous week, put the question to the house, “Do you like the play?” The scene which followed is described as having been sufficiently absurd. The fair manageress was uproariously answered in the affirmative, and the naughty critics were contemptuously alluded to by most sweet voices from the popular parts of the house. Nobody was a whit the better or the worse for the incident, except the manageress who had departed from custom by an act of execrable taste. Miss WALLIS is no novice in theatrical business. Her acquaintance with the ways and manners of the British public is of no recent date. It is true that she acknowledged, in her circular, the alterations which had been made in the play since its production. But she must have known very well that, even supposing her audience to be composed of ordinary units, and not to be, to any extent, a “packed” assemblage, the question would have been taken as a challenge, and accepted as conveying an insinuation. If Miss WALLIS’S only reason had been to ascertain the favour of the public towards the piece, surely the amount of the applause bestowed upon the play nightly, or, still better, the receipts for the week, would have given her sufficient information as to the probability of the piece achieving an enduring success. The best test of the popularity of a drama is not the noise made by one particular audience, but the amount of money expended by the collective patronage of the general public during a period. Applause is very gratifying, but it will not pay salaries; and Miss WALLIS can scarcely intend to continue the run of The Sixth Commandment as long as the piece evokes applause, though it come from thin houses—half “paper.”
     Miss WALLIS invited the Press to pronounce judgment upon Mr BUCHANAN’S play. The critics came, saw, and gave their opinions in print. Miss WALLIS profited by their advice, and altered the piece according to their suggestions. The only logical action then to take would have been to invite the critics a second time, or, supposing it impossible to procure “second notices,” to be satisfied with having read detractions and put them to profit. The appeal to what was, in some sort, a special audience convened by a mysterious notice, was, indeed, so fallacious a test that it is difficult to believe that Miss WALLIS’S motive in making it was exactly that suggested by her circular. Like a lady’s letter, which contains the pith of its intention in its postscript, Miss WALLIS’S address bore its sting in its tail, and her deprecatory allusions to the critics were equally amusing and impertinent. Mr CLEMENT SCOTT has, we see, chosen to take them seriously.
     It is a mistake to suppose that the office and function of dramatic criticism is to predict the success or failure of theatrical speculations. In the case of those forms of entertainment which appeal plainly and avowedly to a crude and childish taste it is, perhaps, useless to do more than admit the success of the production, and commend the adroitness of the manufacturers. It is idle to examine into the ethics of a “carpentered” melodrama, or consider the congruity of a fashionable burlesque. But the mercenary spirit in the case of the dramatist is more often affected than genuine. Even that arch-cynic Mr W. S. GILBERT, lapped in luxury and rolling in wealth untold derived from opera librettoes, aspired to be the author of a sterling play; and discriminating and worthy praise is still felt by many to be an equivalent for a smaller allowance of solid padding in the way of percentages. To stimulate and encourage this feeling, and not to give a manager the “straight tip” as to the success of his speculation, is the higher function of dramatic criticism. There are theatres and audiences for all grades of dramatic work. The Shaftesbury Theatre, when Mr WILLARD handed it over to Miss WALLIS, had acquired a certain prestige and reputation. Mr BUCHANAN, though he has seared his artistic conscience very deeply, is, as some of his works prove, a man of culture and education. The Sixth Commandment was not only crudely conceived, but carelessly constructed. The critics were right to apply the lash severely to this play, written by Mr BUCHANAN and produced at the Shaftesbury Theatre. They had a right to feel indignant that, with all the mental resources at the command of the author and all the financial resources at the command of the management, the length of the performance, even, had not been estimated, and that a great deal of the piece was not only conventional, but unworkmanlike and “scamped.” It might have been thought that, in the circumstances, a certain amount of humility would not have been out of place. When you get people to show you how to revise your work, it is but grateful to avoid slyly offensive action afterwards. However, of one thing Miss WALLIS may rest assured. The shouts of a convened assembly are not only without the least value as a test of the artistic merit of a play: they are equally useless as a gauge of its future profitability. Perhaps, however, the management of the Shaftesbury were “canny” enough after all. The oddity of the experiment of “question-asking” may have secured one good house at least for The Sixth Commandment in addition to the usual “first night” crush. However, we are not disposed to be too hard upon the lady, seeing that she is no sympathiser with the silly abuse levelled at the press by Mr ROBERT BUCHANAN.

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Brooklyn Eagle (9 November, 1890 - p.13)

     Robert Buchanan’s new play, “The Sixth Commandment,” must be about as bad as some of his old plays, to judge from Figaro, for according to that authority it is “notable for the exceeding feebleness and foolishness of its first act, and the almost unrelieved and dreadfully depressive gloom which reigns supreme through the course of the long and tedious action which fills up the many acts in which the piece abounds.”

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Time (November, 1890 - pp.1221-1,226)

“THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT” AT THE SHAFTESBURY.

     Was there really any need for Mr. Robert Buchanan to assure us that he had not adapted Dostoievsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” Doskoievsky, as the programme hath it. His “Sixth Commandment” is melodrama of the Dick Venables type; and we fear, in spite of the brave appeal of Miss Wallis to the public, it will prove of the Dick Venables order of success.
     And the pity of it is that Mr. Buchanan had in the personages and the central incident of “Crime and Punishment” such good material to work upon, and in the company that Miss Wallis had gathered round her, such good material to work with. In the twenty-three names that appear upon the programme there is, literally, not one unknown. And most of them are names of men and women who have made great mark in the world dramatic. Herbert Waring was excellent with the impossible, and Lewis Walter excellent with the hopeless. Marius, best of stage managers, succumbed after a brave struggle with a comic policeman. Maude Brennan came back to us all very welcomely. Miss Wallis and Miss Robins did wonders with nothing. William Herbert and Marion Lea were supposed to provide the fun, as the Israelites were supposed to provide bricks. For once, Ivan Watson did not please. He should have let General Skobeloff (sic) die a natural death instead of galvanising him into unnatural life.

Alec Nelson (pseudonym of Edward Aveling)

[This review appears on the Marxist Internet Archive in the Eleanor Marx Dramatic Notes section.]

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