Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/240

 ONCE A WEEK.

and as meaningless as they ought to be in a classical extravaganza. Altogether I had every

E OF LIFE. "Old

Shop" how Kit went

Curiosity

story of

and Barbara to the morning which folexpedition, the whole party ,

tfol

of the gorgeous ensed

before.

ight

have

think,

I

any

upon with such Every playgoer similar

a

experienced

rate,

I never feel

more

possibly hypercritical, a morning when I have spent the critical,

in

There are, g at a playhouse. of course, obvious and material causes for this In an English frame of mind.

m er

There invariably uncomfortable. for my legs, not, I trust, inordi-

room

a cold draught always meanders the bench on which playfully about my neck required to sit is harder than that of a long





Great Western carriage and the smell and heat bequeath me the never-failing of a headache. Still, these inconveni



aot the

quency of

my

main reasons

for the unfre-

Abroad I

visits to the theatre.

am

one of the most assiduous of playgoers ; ideed, my love for dramatic representation is so great, that I could face much lioyances, if I could really have my taste for acting gratified. Possibly I am unreasonable. The aesthetic excuse for Henry 1 respect to marriage is, that way with one wife after another, simply and solely because he cherished such an 1
 * s conduct in

1

.

i

1

what a wife ought to be, that could rest satisfied with the actual

ideal of

f

womanhood who came

across his

lat I, in like

manner, shall >ld such acting as I have conceived Ot Still, this I know, that the Germany, and Italy apy ideal than those of the reason why they do that they represent life, and i

•

this season

of the

To the -

ttty

[Feb. 20, 1SG4.

manner of ob-

! were well of rose-coloured

reason to be satisfied. Burlesque is, to my mind, a sort of desert to the dramatic banquet.

and epergnes, and Boheand candied fruits, and bonbons enough upon the table, no reasonable guest If there are flowers,

mian will

solid

glass,

object to his not being able to make a and it would be meal out of dessert

about as fair to grumble because a burlesque is not a five-act classical drama. My objection is to the comedy which opened the performances. That, and not the extravaganza, was It is about this the real burlesque of life. play that I wish to grumble. It would not be fair to specify the piece I allude to by name. My objections are rather to the class to which this play belongs, than to the play

enough to say, that it drama of modern English life. Whether it is adapted from the French I neither know nor care. The idea, I fairly and the relations between grant, was English a gentleman and his wife's aunt, which formed It is

itself.

professed to be a



the basis of the plot, were eminently British. Somehow or other a wife's relations are not the bugbear in continental life that they are

with us. In fact, if I may broach an unpardonable heresy, I should say that family relations abroad are, as a rule, far more friendly and domestic than they are in the happy

homes of England. This, however, is merely a parenthesis. The play in question had been I had largely praised in the London papers. read that it was a remarkable picture of modern society, and a clever delineation of The principal part was played English life. by perhaps the most natural and unaffected actress on the London stage and I was told

that the character was one of her best crea-

Moreover, I happened to have frequently met the author and some of the chief

tions.

actors at social

gatherings,

and knew

that,

whatever their dramatic ability might be, they were quiet gentlemanlike men, who knew as well as any men in London what were the habits and customs of middle-class educated society.

With

this

knowledge, I expected to

any rate a representation of such a world as they and I were accustomed to. What was it that I actually saw ? In the first place, there was a grave old

see,

at

gentleman, the father of the family, and, I oaiads, ,

I

forgel

or

which y com-

ommon rorld.

le,

solicitor,

ia

Tl,

a respectable stockbroker, or retired or sleeping partner in a Bank, or

He was dull, but something of that kind. that was in his part; he was dismally comic, DU< that w

and the

-I

of

him



and

his speci-

always carrying a large book a, supposed to be a treatise on

ality consisted ID