THEATRE REVIEWS

32. The Struggle For Life (1890)

The Struggle For Life
by Robert Buchanan and Frederick Horner (an adaptation of the play, La Lutte pour la Vie by Alphonse Daudet).
London: Avenue Theatre. 25 September to 25 October, 1890.

[advert for The Struggle for Life from The Times (25 September, 1890)]

The Times (26 September, 1890 - p.7)

AVENUE THEATRE.

     The adapters of M. Alphonse Daudet’s unfortunate play La Lutte pour la Vie have done him the signal service of cutting out his “Darwinism,” root and branch, and presenting his story as what it really is, a somewhat gloomy, but quite unpretentious, tragedy of the drawingroom type. It is still called The Struggle for Life, but this title is merely the trace of a disused faculty which has survived the evolutionary process of adaptation; it is the rudimentary tail, so to speak, which serves to remind us of the morphological changes effected in M. Daudet’s original scheme. Nothing of the Darwinian counterblast remains, and the name of the author of the “origin of Species” is not even mentioned in the dialogue. As before, the ruthless and cold-blooded Paul Astier is shot down in the last scene, but this retributory deed is no longer put forward as an application of la loi darwinienne; it is merely a rather commonplace act of poetic justice, such as the playwright was wont to permit himself long before Darwin was born. Relieved of its sham science, the piece is now at least a perfectly inoffensive production. Messrs. Robert Buchanan and F. Horner retain the French characters, and have borrowed most of M. Daudet’s ideas. They have, however, recast the story, and the action in its more compact form now passes comfortably within the space of two and a half hours. Being quite an hour shorter than the original, it would be rash to say that The Struggle for Life, apart from the Darwinian question, is not a considerable improvement upon M. Daudet. At the same time it is to be regretted that the adapters have not seen their way to brighten the action a little. The story is still, in an exceptionable degree, one of gloom and depression; for, by a curious fatality, even the one character supposed to provide “comic relief” is a young widow who is always ready to burst into tears for her “late lamented.” The really admirable features of this performance are the mounting and the acting. If the constitutional weaknesses of the play are past cure, Mr. George Alexander has spared no pains to give it a brave and attractive aspect. The gardens of the château and the salon, in which a large portion of the action passes, are among the prettiest and most tasteful “sets” to be seen on the stage. Mr. George Alexander’s own rendering of Paul Astier, with his detestable, but quite incontrovertible, doctrine that the weak must give way to the strong, will alone do much for the play; for the easy, cynical, polished, heartless man of the world of which Paul Astier is a sample has never found a better exponent. The part of the elderly wife, who is a mill stone round the neck of her too ambitious husband, was a triumph for Mme. Pasca at the Gymnase; it is now no less so to Miss Genevieve Ward, who unfalteringly sustains her share of the burden of the play. Happily, too, a very sympathetic victim of Paul Astier’s heartlessness has been found in Miss Laura Graves; while her humble sweetheart, with an unprepossessing exterior but a brave and loyal heart, is depicted with rare skill by Mr. Frederick Kerr. As the father of the hapless Lydie, Mr. Nutcombe Gould is hardly seen at his best, but the character is one which in any case is more to the taste of a French than an English audience. This the adapters have perceived. In the French play, by virtue of his paternal character, it is Vaillant who is charged with the duty of exterminating his daughter’s seducer. That duty, in the English version, is more appropriately transferred to the betrayed lover—a change which is to be credited to the authors as a distinct improvement. Mr. Chevalier plays Paul Astier’s fussy friend Chemineau, and Miss Alma Stanley, Mr. Ben Webster, and others form a picturesque group of fashionable “types.”

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The Daily News (26 September, 1890 - Issue 13877)

THE DRAMA.
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“THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE” AT THE AVENUE.

     The change from the light-hearted gaiety of “Dr. Bill” to the depressing sadness of M. Daudet’s drama “La Lutte pour la Vie” at the Avenue Theatre, is somewhat abrupt and violent; but the objection to Messrs. Buchanan and Horner’s adaptation of this gloomy piece lies somewhat deeper than this. It was not the absurdity of the indictment of Darwinism; neither was it exactly the sombre nature of the story that weighed upon the spirits of the audience during the performance of “The Struggle for Life” last night. It was rather the insincerity of the treatment of the theme. The dramatists have shown some skill and tact in compressing the first two acts into one and transposing somewhat the method of the original; but equal praise cannot be accorded to some other of the liberties taken with the French play. The last act, which is made to pass in the grounds of the Duchess’s chateau where Paul Astier is slain, not by the outraged father of Lydie, but by her milksop lover Caussade, is certainly not an improvement upon the auction scene. The tedious prolongation of this scene, and the manifest incongruities with which it is burdened, fairly broke down the patience of the spectators, and the curtain finally descended amidst manifestations of dissatisfaction which though they mingled with the more courteous demonstrations of a first-night audience, were not to be mistaken. The result was the more to be deplored because Mr. George Alexander’s Paul Astier presented many fine traits, and Miss Genevieve Ward has never acted with more force and effect than she did last night in the character of Madame Astier. The play was preceded by Mr. Sydney Grundy’s sprightly comedietta “Man Proposes,” which was acted with much spirit and cleverness by Mr. Ben Webster, Miss Marie Linden, and Miss Lilian Hingston.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (26 September, 1890 - Issue 7963)

The Theatres.

“THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE” AT THE AVENUE THEATRE.

     If Mr. George Alexander was not able to record a complete managerial triumph last night, he may surely be credited with having achieved a remarkable and decided histrionic success. “The Struggle for Life” may not be the most satisfactory path for a comparatively young actor to take in his progress towards perfection in his art; but, for all that, there will be few who will fail to recognize in Mr. Alexander’s Paul Astier a degree of strength, independence, and creative power, which we have rarely seen in his previous work. To Miss Genevieve Ward, too, the occasion offered an opportunity, of which the actress did not fail to avail herself. In fact, she fairly divided the honours of the evening with Mr. Alexander, making her audience wonder from first to last how it is that her appearances on our metropolitan “boards” of late have been so few and far between.
     Every one who witnessed Alphonse Daudet’s curious drama, “La Lutte pour la Vie,” must have realized the difficulties that would stand in the way of its transplantation to the English stage. Even Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Fred Horner, who are jointly responsible for the adaptation produced last night at the Avenue Theatre, cannot have helped feeling that they were undertaking no light task when they set themselves to make so risky and repulsive a subject tolerable in the eyes of a London audience. A hero who is the personification of villainy and cowardice, and a heroine who has committed the offences—not easily condoned by the exacting playgoer—of attaining middle age and marrying a man well-nigh young enough to be her son, do not form the safest dramatic foundation in the world. One only wonders that the authors of “The Struggle for Life” have been able to place before us so clear and concise a version of the piece. Messrs. Buchanan and Horner have found it impossible to remove all the fundamental weaknesses of the story; but they have, at any rate, done the next best thing in compressing the action, reducing Daudet’s quasi-philosophical generalities to a minimum, and concentrating as far as possible an interest which the French author was content to make shifting and uncertain in its character. It is hardly necessary at this time to dive very deep into the details of a plot which has been so fully discussed on previous occasions. Suffice it to say that in almost all material respects the main story of the play is unchanged.
     The two scenes at the close of the first and third acts stand out with striking vividness, played as they are by Mr. Alexander and Miss Ward. The earlier one, where Astier persuades his wife to forget his infidelities and return with him to Paris, is perhaps more satisfactory and convincing by reason of its greater truth to nature. Still, the tragic intensity of the poison episode was never relaxed by either actor or actress, who, as we have already said, may both claim to have accomplished a tour de force which was all the more striking when the quality of the material at their command was taken into consideration.
     The play, it must be confessed, loses a good many of its subordinate effects through the rather unpolished rendering of some of the minor characters. Mr. Albert Chevalier, excellent comedian as he is in congenial rôles, is hardly an ideal Chemineau. Mr. Nutcombe Gould makes the injured postmaster Vaillant a needlessly “doddering” individual; while Mr. George Capel is clearly out of place as the old custodian of the château. Mr. Frederick Kerr has an excessively difficult part to play in Antonin Caussade; and, if he fails to arrive at the full force of the situation at the end of the second act, he deserves credit for the many careful details and evidences of thought in his performance. Miss Alma Stanley and Miss Laura Graves are rather overweighted as Esther and Lydie, though they both have their good moments. Mr. Bucklaw plays a “filling-in” part pleasantly enough, while Mr. Ben Webster and Miss Kate Phillips give two fairly neat character sketches. Mr. Harker’s scenery is most suitable and picturesque.

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The Era (27 September, 1890 - Issue 2714)

THE AVENUE.
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On Thursday, Sept. 25th, a Modern Drama, in Four Acts,
Adapted from Alphonse Daudet’s “La Lutte pour la Vie,”
by Robert Buchanan and Fred. Horner, entitled
“THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.”

Paul Astier   ...     ...     ...     Mr GEORGE ALEXANDER
Chemineau   ...     ...     ...     Mr ALBERT CHEVALIER
Count Adriani       ...     ...     Mr BEN WEBSTER
Vaillant         ...     ...     ...     Mr NUTCOMBE GOULD
Antonin Caussade ...     ...     Mr FREDERICK KERR
Védrine         ...     ...     ...     Mr BUCKLAW
Heurtebise     ...     ...     ...     Mr GEORGE CAPEL
Duc De Brétigny    ...     ...     Mr BATSON
Monsieur Noblet    ...     ...     Mr ALFRED HOLLES
Stenne            ...     ...     ...     Mr E. H. KELLY
Paskowitch     ...     ...     ...     Mr A. ROYSTON
Esther De Sélény     ...     ...     Miss ALMA STANLEY
La Maréchale De Sélény ...     Miss KATE PHILLIPS
Lydie              ...     ...     ...     Miss LAURA GRAVES
Countess Fodore     ...     ...     Miss LILIAN HINGSTON
Madame De Quincampoix       Miss GRANVILLE
La Marquise De Rocanère       Miss STUART
Marie              ...     ...     ...     Miss MELITTA
Madame Paul Astier        ...     Miss GENEVIEVE WARD

     From the time that the playgoing world was informed than an English version of La Lutte pour la Vie was underlined for production at the Avenue, curiosity has been rife as to what Messrs Buchanan and Horner would make of M. Daudet, and what Mr Alexander’s company would make of a play written for a vastly different school of performers. The answers provided for these two questions by Thursday night’s performance are not identical. The players on the whole have done fairly well; Messrs Buchanan and Horner uncommonly ill. But everything in its turn. Let us deal first with the adaptors. We use the right word, for Messrs Buchanan and Horner are careful to point out that their play is an adaptation, and in no sense a translation of the original. In the many alterations which have been made, it is easy to see what has been their guiding principle. They have had their eye all the time upon what are conventionally supposed to be the hard-and-fast requirements of the British playgoer—conventionally supposed, because we are not all sure that the ideas current in green-rooms and managerial offices about the supposed needs of the playgoer in question are justified by strict and recent observation. Be that as it may, it is for this fearful and wonderful playgoer of the “mind’s eye” that Mr Buchanan and Mr Horner have catered. The British playgoer is supposed, rightly or wrongly, to dislike impropriety on the stage—outside the regions of burlesque. This consideration at once condemns M. Daudet’s first act, which is so naughty as to exhibit to the public gaze a young woman emerging from a bedroom in bare shoulders and dishevelled hair. Nothing, of course, so shocking as this is to be seen at the Avenue. It is true that with the abolition of M. Daudet’s first act the exposition of the story is practically spoiled. We are no longer plunged in media res; no longer see at a glance, five minutes after the rising of the curtain, what a brute Paul Astier is, and how he has determined, by the most scandalous means, to wring a divorce from the duchess, his wife. But the British playgoer’s blushes are spared, so it is no good crying over spilt milk, or vanished first acts.
     In serious situations this same British playgoer is supposed to be fond of invocations to the Deity. Hence, Messrs Buchanan and Horner have not been able to keep their fingers off the great scene, the poison scene, at the close of what is their third and M. Daudet’s fourth act. In the original, Paul, after the failure of his attempt to poison his wife, sues for forgiveness, and is told in reply that though his wife may, and does, forgive, Nature never forgives. Upon that the curtain descends. The statement is true enough, and is perhaps one of M. Daudet’s tardy apologies to science—the science he has elsewhere so grievously offended by taking the name of Darwin in vain. Messrs Buchanan and Horner prefer to take the name of the Deity in vain. The Duchess is made to point heavenwards, to allude to Him, &c., and to add in notes of religious fervour, “To your knees! to your knees!” If we timidly object that a man of Paul Astier’s temperament is hardly likely to be forced to his knees by references to a Deity in whom he does not believe, Messrs Buchanan and Horner will doubtless answer that whatever Paul Astier’s theological leanings may be, those of the British playgoer are well known, and it is those only which they have had in view.
     The British playgoer, unlike the French, is supposed to have little fancy, on the stage, for excessive developments of parental affection. Lovers may be as mad as you please, but parents must not be allowed to let their feelings get the better of them. For some such reason as this, we suppose, the adaptors have altered M. Daudet’s dénoûment. It is no longer old Vaillant, the betrayed Lydie’s heart-broken father, who shoots his daughter’s betrayer, but Caussade, the young lady’s distracted sweetheart. The change is not for the better. It makes the prominence given to that tedious personage old Vaillant in the earlier acts of the play quite meaningless. The whole of the final business, too, of the last act, has been done away with. We no longer have the sale by auction, in which the auctioneer’s words were made so ingeniously to fit in with the circumstances of Paul Astier’s death. In deference to what supposed prejudice of the British playgoer this detail has been sacrificed, we confess ourselves quite unable to surmise. But enough on the subject of the adaptors’ alterations.
     The players, we began by saying, have done fairly well. Some of them unexpectedly well. We doubt, for instance, whether anyone familiar with Mr Alexander’s pleasant, sunny, buoyant stage personality could have foreseen how cleverly he has adapted it to the exigencies of a part which is its very antithesis. True, he does not succeed in realising for us, so completely as M. Marais did, the ruthless, brutal, hateful, yet polished ruffian of M. Daudet’s imagination. Nature will not let him do that. But he goes very near it, playing throughout with a subdued force, an incisiveness, a distinction, for which few playgoers can have been prepared. There are one or two mistakes of detail. He was too slow over the poisoning business; not sufficiently callous in his description of Lydie’s attempted suicide; and in the fourth act he was an unconscionable time a-dying. Paul Astier should spin round like a top, and fall as dead as a doornail. The author’s idea is to give an effect of a villain’s sudden extinction at what seems the very height of his triumph. This effect is weakened by a death too prolonged. The Duchess Padovani is played, of course, by Miss Genevieve Ward. We say of course, because she is the one actress on the English stage for whom the part might expressly have been written. Her impressive presence, her sonorous and distinct utterance, the air of intellectual power which is a very part of her being—these things find ample scope in the character. Now and then, perhaps, where the Duchess should be in the melting mood—and only a melting duchess could have succumbed to the influence of such a ruffian as Paul Astier—Miss Ward is a little hard. It is inevitable that a style which has the polish and the fine edge of a steel blade should have something of its hardness, too. But it is on the whole a fine performance, worthy of the actress, and far too good for the play. Miss Alma Stanley looks the handsome Jewess, Esther de Sélény, to the life, but she fails to impart much significance to the character. M. Daudet’s Esther is far from being an agreeable personage. She is designed as a natural mate for Paul Astier—the feminine type of the “Struggle for Lifeur.” Miss Alma Stanley, assisted by the author, tries to become sympathetic, introduces touches of comedy, all with indifferent success. Fault has been found with Mr Chevalier because his Chemineau is a broader caricature than M. Noblet’s. Mr Chevalier’s hat may possibly be a mistake, and he may also have gone to the wrong tailor; but if he has presented us with the Frenchman of the English comic papers, instead of with a realistic study of the latter day Boulevardier, he may plead that, like Messrs Buchanan and Horner, he knows his public, and provides them with the comic Frenchman which they are accustomed to expect. Miss Laura Graves makes a pretty and sympathetic Lydie, though she ought to know that in France Alsatian bows as an article of headgear are confined to nursemaids. Her big scene with Caussade, in the second act, went as well in English as it did in the original, a result the credit of which is mainly due to the acting of Mr Frederick Kerr. Mr Kerr, perhaps, unduly exaggerated the uncouth ways and awkward appearance of the young chemist, but the force and feeling of the character lost nothing in his hands. Miss Kate Phillips’s picture of the weeping Maréchale de Sélény will not bear comparison with that of the inimitable Desclauzas, but she looked very charming and, mirabile dictu, almost slim, in her widow’s weeds. Of the rest there is little to be said. Mr Nutcombe Gould does his best to mitigate the tediousness of old Vaillant. But Messrs Buchanan and Horner have made the task impossible for him. Mr Ben Webster does not grasp the character of Count Adriani, nor does he wear the correct uniform of a Papal Noble Guard. Mr Bucklaw as Védrine, an insignificant character of the adaptors’ own creation, and Mr George Capel as Heurtebise, the Duchess’s old family servant, are not more than sufficient.

[advert for The Struggle for Life from The Times (27 September, 1890)]

Reynolds’s Newspaper (28 September, 1890 - Issue 2094)

AVENUE THEATRE.

     “The Struggle for Life,” an adaptation of M. Daudet’s “La Lutte pour la Vie,” by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Fred Horner, was produced at the Avenue Theatre on Thursday evening. The authors have taken pains to explain that their version of the distinguished Frenchman’s play is in no sense a “translation.” They have made great changes in the dialogue and plot, and the sequence of scenes and incidents has been altered. The fundamental idea, however, is retained. It is, in fact, a drama upon the quasi-Darwinian theory of the “survival of the strongest.” Paul Astier, an architect and member of the Chamber of Deputies, is an incarnation of worldliness. “Self” is the guiding star of his life. He indulges his passion for pleasure, yet he is consumed with ambition. The cross-working of these tendencies occasions his ruin. No aspiring Frenchman is supposed to be completely equipped for his task unless he has in hand some thrilling feminine intrigue. With women Astier is perfectly irresistible. They all believe him sincere, except his wife, the Duchess Padovani, whom, older than himself, he married for her possessions. He is now anxious to get rid of her by fair or by foul means, that he may marry a young, wealthy, and beautiful Jewess, Esther De Sélény, Meanwhile, in a spare moment, he has seduced Lydie Vaillant, the innocent and confiding daughter of the local postmaster. Paul’s wife will not consent to be divorced; so he thinks of poisoning her, but draws back at the last moment. His neglect and cruelties, however, eventually induce the Duchess to consent to a divorce. Astier is just on the verge of attaining all he desired—money and a wife after his own style—when he is shot dead by Antonin Caussade, an analytical chemist, whose sweetheart, Lydie, died of a broken heart through the treachery and desertion by the hero. As interpreted by Messrs, Buchanan and Horner, the play bears evidence of hasty and somewhat crude construction. Its parts are not harmoniously welded together. We are jerked from situation to situation. Considered as an artistic work, a certain grace and harmony are lacking. In the first act, which has for its locale the exterior of Astier’s home, the Château of Mousseaux, there is some tedious trifling with a party of sightseers. The crowded drawing-room scene in the third act is monotonous. The fourth act is oppressed with fragmentary incidents. Throughout the play the dialogue is generally dull, and too frequently commonplace. Much was done to relieve these faults of authorship by the powerful acting of Mr. George Alexander, as Paul Astier, and Miss Genevieve Ward as his wife, the Duchess Padovani. Nothing could be better in its way than Mr. Alexander’s representation of the cold, heartless, hypocritical cynic. The picture of smooth selfishness and tutored self-control was painted with such delicate and subtle touches that the personality of the other characters was minimized or forgotten in anticipating what future the Fates were weaving for the hero. The death scene was most impressive. Astier’s wild, despairing struggle with the inevitable; his agonizing cry as the goblet of life is dashed from his lips; his ineffectual defiance to the doom to which in a moment he succumbs, formed a series of intense and highly dramatic incidents. Miss Genevieve Wars sustained her difficult part with the greatest ability. She was the proud châtelaine, overwhelmed with remorseful self-reproaches for weakly allowing Astier’s fascinations to overcome her resolve to repudiate him. Her bearing was lofty and noble; there could have been no better exponent of the part. In the poison scene she commanded the enthusiasm of the audience. Of the other performers—with the exception of Miss Alma Stanley, who was the Jewess, Esther De Sélény, and Miss Kate Phillips, who went very amusingly through the farcical part of a weeping widow—it must be said that if they had intended to saturate their representations with a Gallic flavour they were not altogether successful. Lydie Vaillant, for instance, played by Miss Laura Graves, was rather a sentimental, puling English schoolgirl, than what we should fancy a French girl to be under the circumstances. Mr. Albert Chevalier had an admirable opportunity as Chemineau, the flippant friend of Paul Astier. Now he did not convey the idea of “friend”; but rather of hired retainer; the note of gentility was missing. His playfulness lacked unobtrusive spontaneity, and there was little of the French style about it. Had the character been English, Mr. Chevalier’s playing would not be open to the same censure. Mr. Frederick Kerr is an actor upon whom we look with pleasure and hope. His art is always marked by intelligence and finish. The interview with Lydie Vaillant, when he has discovered her intrigue with Astier, was in every way admirable. But why is Mr. Kerr’s make-up quite so depressing from the beginning? If Antonin Caussade always looked like that, it is no wonder Lydie turned her eyes elsewhere. Mr. Nutcombe Gould was hardly an ideal French father, although here and there were some effective suggestions of pathos. Mr. Ben Webster’s Count Adriana, attaché of the Italian Embassy, will be improved when the actor is less self-conscious. At the conclusion of the piece the unofficial critics seemed to be about equally divided as to its merits, although at no time had they any doubt of the excellence of the acting of Mr. Alexander, Miss Ward, and Mr. Kerr.

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Glasgow Herald (29 September, 1890)

MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.
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(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

                                                                                                                      London, Sunday Night.
     Messrs Buchanan and Horner’s “Struggle for Life,” being the English version of Daudet’s satire on the Darwinian theory, entitled “La Lutte pour la Vie,” has duly been produced at the Avenue. The London critics seem divided in opinion concerning the merits of the work; and the wisdom of a change in the denouement—Paul Astier now being shot, not by the vengeful father of the poor girl he has ruined, but by the young chemist who is the girl’s sweetheart—has especially been called in question. The chief defects of the “Struggle for Life” are, however, in the original French play rather than in the English adaptation. The central personage in the piece, although affording Mr Alexander a strong character part, which the young actor plays admirably, is a being for whom audiences can possibly express no other feeling than that of detestation. Himself quite penniless he fascinates and marries a rich woman of middle age, who, believing in him, confides to him almost all her fortune. Paul Astier speedily gives proof that her money alone is an object of interest to him. He agrees with the handsome and wealthy Jewess Esther de Sélény to marry her after he has divorced his wife; and under promise of marriage he has also seduced the young woman Lydie. His wife refuses to divorce him, and for a time they are apparently reconciled. Paul, however, when one day visiting Lydie, discovers that the unhappy girl has taken poison. He calls in a doctor, who administers remedies, and taking the rest of the poison home, he resolves with it to kill his wife. His courage, however, fails him, and his wife (the French plot here again being altered) commands him to fall on his knees for Divine forgiveness. In the last act the scene of the auction has been suppressed, and, as we have already indicated, Paul, by a pistol shot, receives fitting punishment for his crimes. The success which the drama achieved was due chiefly to the magnificent acting of the Avenue company, and especially of Mr Alexander as the Paul Astier, and of Miss Genevieve Ward as his wife, the poison scene being particularly effective.

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The Penny Illustrated Paper (4 October, 1890 - p.210)

The New Play at the Avenue.

     M. Alphonse Daudet’s play, which was first given at the Gymnase, Paris, in October last, caused much discussion owing to an idea being prevalent among the Parisians that it was a satire in dramatic form upon the theories of Darwin. This fancy so caught the Parisian playgoers that a clumsy compound word, “The Struggle for Lifer,” was invented. As a matter of fact, the Darwinism of the play is very slight, and is absolutely opposed to the great conception of our English scientist. In Daudet’s play, instead of the “Survival of the Fittest,” we have the triumph of the basest, for the character of Paul Astier is an odious one. He is a man of cynical views, profligate tastes, and unscrupulous aims, and marries the Duchess de Padovani, a lady of great wealth and influence, solely for her fortune. She is many years older, and soon discovers the true character of her husband, who, when he has spent her fortune, wishes to get rid of her. She will not consent to a divorce, although she knows him to be the betrayer of a confiding girl, and to be ambitious to marry a wealthy Jewess. The  wretch, finding the Duchess obstinately opposed to divorce, attempts to poison her; but he is such a coward that he awakens her suspicions, and then, in sheer disgust, the Duchess yields. The noble château is sold to Esther de Sélény, the rich Jewess, and Paul Astier is elated and triumphant, when the lover of Lydie Vaillant, the poor girl he seduced, shoots him, and “The Struggle for Life” is ended. There are strong points in the drama, and Messrs. Buchanan and Horner have done their work fairly well in the English translation at the Avenue. The character of Paul Astier is a repulsive one, but Mr. George Alexander plays it admirably, realising the cynical disposition of the hero, and altogether displaying more than ordinary ability. Miss Genevieve Ward is pathetic and powerful as the Duchess, her acting in the scene where she discovers the meditated murder being very fine. Miss Laura Graves was charming as Lydie; and Miss Kate Phillips, as a pretty widow whimsically lamenting her lost lord, was attractive. The remainder of the male characters have not much individuality, but Mr. Albert Chevalier makes Chemeneau, the toady and parasite, amusing. The piece is really a melodrama, and it met with a favourable reception. Messrs. Buchanan and Horner were called for, with the principal performers. If somewhat disappointing, the play is not without considerable interest, and it is well placed upon the stage by Mr. George Alexander, the director of the Avenue.

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The Graphic (4 October, 1890 - Issue 1038)

     “MIRTH, admit me of thy crew,” has ceased to be the motto of Mr. Alexander, at the AVENUE Theatre, where the bright and merry Dr. Bill has given way to the painful and oppressive Struggle for Life, a version by Messrs. Buchanan and Horner of M. Daudet’s Lutte pour la Vie. After the fashion of “adaptors” these gentlemen have added a note to their playbill, wherein it is delicately hinted that what pleasure audiences may derive from the English version is to be placed to their account, since they have not slavishly “translated,” but have altered and improved upon the original. As a fact the alterations are not very important, and the story, in which M. Daudet imagines himself to have exposed the evil effects of excessive indulgence in Darwinian theories about the survival of the fittest, becomes even duller and more absurd in the “adaptation” than in the French play. Mr. Alexander’s impersonation of the frankly selfish and vicious hero is, no doubt, a very clever piece of acting, and Miss Geneviève Ward’s performance in the part of his long-suffering wife, Madame Astier, Duchess de Padovani, is powerful enough to contrast more than favourably with Madame Pasca’s much-praised impersonation; but these merits are not sufficient to recompense an audience doomed to witness for two hours and a-half the sombre unrealities of this strained and unnatural production. Our native English drama, though reviving, may not be at a very high level; but it is certainly capable of furnishing better work than this latest importation from the Parisian stage.

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The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post (11 October, 1890 - Issue 13234)

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     The autumnal theatre season has begun in earnest. Mr Irving was almost the first to open it at the Lyceum, then came Mr George Alexander in “The Struggle for Life” at his own theatre, the Avenue. This play is an adaptation of Alphonse Daudet’s “La Lutte de la Vie,” by Robert Buchanan and Frederick Horner, and very excellently mounted it is. George Alexander, as the hero and villain of the play, Paul Astier, is almost surprising in the power which he throws into a character so entirely foreign to any he has taken before. His versatility is amazing, when one recollects him so lately in the frivolous and amusing rôle of Dr. Bill and the more sober character of the “Grandsire.” It is almost painful to see his beautiful eyes assume the evil expression of treachery and deceit, and his handsome face is so much more pleasingly associated with the idea of a genuine, ardent lover than a selfish, vile deceiver, that it was difficult to detest him as much as his character deserved. Miss Genevieve Ward as the elderly wife, the rich and noble lady who sacrifices everything for the wicked young husband, acts splendidly and enlists the sympathies of her audience. There are many little bits and curious scenes throughout this somewhat sad and melancholy play which relieve it and provoke laughter. I was much amused to watch Mr Alexander making his toilette previous to a dinner party at which he had to be host. It is not often that one is privileged to see the details of a dressing-room performance, and it pleased me to observe the latest approved fashion for fastening a collar and arranging a gentleman’s white neck tie. I thought the little loop at the back of the shirt collar through which the tie was passed to prevent it from riding up, a novel and clever dodge, and I communicated the idea at once to a young swell who was with me. Instead of being thankful for the hint, however, he assured me that a pin was much more effectual for keeping the collar in its place, and so I felt discouraged and took no further notes. Nevertheless, I was interested in the thorough hand washing in which the hero indulges, and I wondered whether he was using Pear’s soap in the process. If so, there is a suggestion ready-made for a telling advertisement of that much advertised and excellent commodity, of which the proprietors will surely be clever enough to avail themselves in some form. There is not a word, but of praise, to be said of any of the characters, as I saw them acted the other evening. All seemed to me to be as good as they could be, and yet throughout the interest centred, as it should, in the chief performers, and their perfect reading of the characters they represented. Miss Genevieve Ward is unmistakably many years the senior of her treacherous and wicked husband, but she is an interesting and clever woman, and becomes absolutely pathetic at last. I am almost sorry to realise how well our delightful young actor understands the working of a perfidious villain’s mind, and how fully he gives expression to it, with features so little accustomed to denote anything but goodness, gentleness, and perfect sincerity. It is however by the mastery of his own nature and the temporary adoption of another, possibly quite foreign to him, that he shows the true genius of an actor.
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                                                                                                                               PENELOPE.
     Thursday, London.

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

     The “notice” went up at the Avenue on Saturday, so, according to present arrangements, “The Struggle for Life” will be withdrawn at the end of next week. It would have been vain, indeed, to attempt to “run” a play so directly at variance with the tastes of the public, and Mr. Alexander has acted wisely in bowing to the inevitable. The Daudet-Buchanan-Horner drama will be followed by a far more promising production in the shape of a new play from the pen of Mr. R. C. Carton. This will be called “Sunlight and Shadow.” As I mentioned some months back, I have heard nothing but favourable reports of the piece; in fact, speaking for myself, I shall expect to see something quite Robertsonian in its delicacy and tenderness. At any rate, a part-author of “The Great Pink Pearl” and “The Pointsman” can hardly fail to give us an artistic and workmanlike play, and to that, if to nothing else, we may look forward with confidence. There are only eight characters in “Sunlight and Shadow,” and of these the hero and heroine will be acted by Mr. Yorke Stephens and Miss Marion terry, a lady who has been absent from the London “boards” too long. Mr. George Alexander will appear as a sympathetic cripple, while Mr. Ben Webster and Miss Maud Millett will sustain the light comedy interest.

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The Graphic (25 October, 1890 - Issue 1091)

     The Struggle for Life has not been found to suit the tastes of audiences at the AVENUE Theatre. This rather clumsy adaptation of M. Daudet’s dismal and purposeless melodrama—for such his vaunted indictment of Darwinism really is—will be withdrawn after to-night. Mr. Alexander will then close the theatre, to re-open on the I^st of next month with a new comedy by Mr. Carton.

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The Theatre (1 November, 1890)

“THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.”

A modern drama, in four acts, adapted from Alphonse Daudet’s “La Lutte pour la Vie,”
by ROBERT BUCHANAN and FRED HORNER.
First produced at the Avenue Theatre, Thursday, September 25, 1890.

     When “La Lutte pour la Vie” was produced at Her Majesty’s, in June last by M. Meyer, it was not appreciated by the English public even in its original, and with the powerful and sympathetic acting of Mme. Pasca and of M. Marais. One reason of this may have been that the author evidently mistook the teaching of the Darwinian theory as to the survival of the fittest, and chose to impute to him the doctrine that a man, sans foy, sans loy, may to gain his own ends sweep every obstacle from his path, reckless of the consequences to others; the other reason may have been that, as a rule, English people look with some contempt and even ridicule on a middle-aged woman’s foolish love for a young husband. Such a character as the Duchess Padovani, who really shares the main interest of the play with Paul Astier, is therefore out of sympathy with her audience. The English adaptation is announced to have been made by Robert Buchanan and Fred Horner. Mr. Buchanan is stated in an interview recorded in a London newspaper to have laid claim to the entire adaptation. If so, whatever merits or shortcomings there may be in the work are attributable to him. The drama has been curtailed to four acts with some advantage, but there is a want of lightness and relief in it. It will be remembered that Paul Astier, having dissipated the fortune of the Duchess, seeks to gain her consent to a divorce. As she strenuously opposes this, he determines to rid himself of her by poison; but just as she is about to drink, his courage fails him, and he stays her hand. A wealthy Jewess, Esther de Sélény, is willing to accept him for her husband, and the Duchess having at length freed him to save him from the crime of further attempts upon her life, he is about to marry Esther, when he is shot down by the father of the girl Lydie whom he has seduced, in refutation of Astier’s theory that the strong always destroy the weak, the latter sometimes in their turn rising in self-defence and destroying the strong. In the English version, Antonin Caussade, the lover of Lydie, is made the instrument to avenge the wrongs inflicted on her and her father, who both die from the consequences of Astier’s misdeeds. This I am inclined to think is an improvement on the original. The young fellow has a double motive for taking the law into his own hands. He has borne, almost with submission, the loss of the girl he loved, but when he finds her father, the man who has been also as a father to him, dead of a broken heart on her grave, an implacable hatred for the man who has wrought the double mischief fills his breast, he looks upon him as a monster that should no longer cumber the earth, and finding Astier in the arms of Esther, gloating over the present success of his schemes, and looking forward to even greater preferment before men in the future, Antonin unhesitatingly puts an end to his career. There is a fatal want of sympathy for all the characters in “The Struggle for Life.” Even to poor Lydie—almost a weak confiding child, very sweetly played by Miss Laura Graves—our hearts cannot go out, for we know that she reckons on the divorce of the Duchess, and that she will then become Mme. Astier. Perhaps we feel most for Antonin Caussade, the struggling, honest, retiring young chemist, but it must be admitted that average audiences do not look beneath the surface; that a stuttering, hesitating man is not generally looked upon as a hero. All the more credit to Mr. Frederick Kerr, who through almost the entire second act could not only uphold the interest, and not cause the titter which his supposed infirmity is prone to raise, but could actually draw tears from many, and in the last act could rise to manly dignity, cold and stern, the instrument of justice though the slayer of his fellow man. Mr. Kerr’s performance was a great one, and has not received the praise which in my opinion it deserves. Vaillant is made a cherry grateful old man by Mr. Nutcombe Gould in accordance with his text. The character was well played, but we see but too little of him in his sorrow to feel any great pity for him. And what are we to say of Chemineau? He is a thoughtless little Boulevardier. He, like Astier, has risen from nothing, but is different from Astier who, with readier wit and tact, can accommodate himself to his improved position. Chemineau remains but little better than a gamin de Paris, with an intense admiration, almost worship, for the patron whose dirty work he does without thinking of the results. He wears good clothes, but he cannot look a gentleman in them; he wears a good hat, but it is of the pattern to which he has been accustomed. He is almost intended for a bon diable, and this is the only fault I find with Mr. Chevalier’s acting; we should have had at least a suspicion of the cloven foot in him. But he was almost too genial. His broken French was excellent (as it should be, for M. Chevalier is a Frenchman), and he contrived to light up the scenes in which he figured by his quaint manner. Still it would have been better had a light, instead of an eccentric, comedian been cast for the character. Miss Alma Stanley did well as Esther de Sélény—who is only a fictitious Countess. In reality she is a wealthy Jewess, ambitious, believing that Astier is the man who, through her fortune, can raise her to the position she aspires to, and what little of heart there is in her she gives to him. She is not an estimable character, but handsome and striking. Miss Kate Phillips’s talents are thrown away on the part of the foolish tearful Maréchale de Sélény, who after all is an arrant humbug, for while she weeps over the memory of her warrior husband, she accepts time-serving, fortune-hunting little Chemineau. Mr. Bucklaw is earnest as Védrine, a character that is superfluous; and Mr. Ben Webster shines most in the latter portion of his acting as the foppish Count Adriani, another foolish character that could well be spared. Those who filled the remaining minor parts were equal to the occasion. It now comes to speaking of the two principals. Miss Genevieve Ward fully embodied the nobler attributes of the miserable wife of Paul Astier, and her scene with him where he intended poisoning her was highly wrought out; where the strength was wanting, was that she gave almost a maternal tone to her affection for her sinful partner—it was chastened, enduring love with scarcely one touch of that passion which one would imagine should have inspired her persistent forgiveness of the insults heaped upon her. Miss Ward’s reading may have been a correct one, but it did not tell so much with the audience as a more vivid rendering would have done. Only praise could be bestowed on Mr. Alexander’s Paul Astier. Cold and heartless in the means to gain his end, he could warm into the semblance of the most passionate lover or cajole his humble victim with his honeyed words; he could be stern and relentless and yet tremble and turn coward at the thought of the consequences his crime might bring upon him. In his death scene he could endeavour to defy that fate which he had so persistently through his life ignored, and in his last moments could prove there was one soft spot in his black heart as he uttered his only true words of love to Esther as he died in her arms. If good acting can make a play a success, “The Struggle for Life” should succeed. The mounting of the piece was superb, and yet in the very best taste, the dresses of the ladies who figure as guests were made by the most fashionable modistes, and as they were ladies who wore them, and not the ordinary supers, they looked at home in them; and the male guests consisted of young gentlemen who wish to adopt the stage as a profession, and are gaining confidence by “standing on.” Though personally I was much interested during the entire evening, I could not but feel that the existence of “The Struggle for Life” on the boards might not be a very prolonged one.

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