Lily Hanbury (1874-1908)

"The Charlatan"
A Play in four acts, by Robert Buchanan.
Produced at the Haymarket Theatre, Thursday, January 18th, 1894.
(with Lily Hanbury as Lady Carlotta)

"Give me a good mystery: one as puzzles judge and jury, and pretty nigh 'angs the wrong man." That was the special weakness of the parish clerk in 'The Silver King' - the village Nestor who averred "The Psalms is one thing and the Daily Telegraph is another" and the weakness of Mr. Binks (if the vogue of Mr. Sherlock Holmes means aught) is common to us all. Wise, therefore, with the wisdom of the serpent has Mr. Buchanan been to weave into his story of "The Charlatan" an impalpable web of mystery. Glamour and mystery, mystery and glamour - with these potent charms the magician playwright had worked, and with these on the first night he brought the vast majority of his audience under his spell.

All is plain sailing at first. From the brisk rallies which ensue between Lady Carlotta Deepdale and the Hon. Mervyn Darrell, one divines merely that Theosophy has insinuated its bewildering and fascinating presence into the country seat of old Lord Wanborough, and that the tastes of the young cousins are the whole world apart. He lives the "higher life," inhales with languid delight the "aroma of decay," finds "the only enjoyment in life in the spasm of artistic agony which arises from social decay, out of which springs literature, which is life," and in brief an extremely egotistical, pessimistic and over-cultured young man. Lady Carlotta, on the other hand, is all spring and sunshine. She revels in plum-pudding and Dickens, "is a vulgar optimist," irradiates the castle with her glorious beauty and sunny smile, and doubtless holds the championship medal of the Wanborough Golf Club. But the reach for plain sailing is soon traversed. With the entrance of Miss Arlington, the Earl's ward, a note of mystery is struck.

Miss Arlington is fragile, pallid, and intense. She lives in the clouds, has premonitions, and can feel no happiness in the loyal affection, handsome rent-roll, title, and political celebrity of Lord Dewsbury, her robustious fiance. Moreover, she suffers from disturbing memories. One is of her father, an adventurous explorer in Thibet, good news of whom is now almost past praying for. The other is of a love passage in Calcutta years ago. Its nature is soon learned. While singing very prettily and touchingly in the plow of a saffron sunset, a visitor glides stealthily into the darkened room. It is her rejected Eurasian lover of long ago. He bears a different name, is now a shining light of the sham Theosophists, and is there to work out a vile revenge for her (not undeserved) past disdain. He knows that Colonel Arlington lives, and, to lure the impressionable girl into his net, proposes to use that knowledge in a startling way. With the help of a rather too obvious Russian adventuress, a famous Theosophist, also a guest of the Earl's, a seance is given, during which a vision of the missing traveller is by a trick made to appear to sceptics and believers alike, immediately prior to the arrival of a telegram from the explorer himself announcing his safety and return. This cruel jugglery is merely the first step, however, in Philip Woodville's scheme. Since Miss Arlington will not and cannot marry him, he resolves that she shall marry no one else. To this end he employs his hypnotic influence over her, as Joseph Balsamo used his over Lorenzo, in Durnas's 'Memoirs of a Physician.' From his quarters in the turret-room at dead of night he wills the poor girl to leave her bed and come to him. Obedient to the summons her white-robed figure glides along the terrace, and enters his room. In hypnotic sleep, again like Balsamo s victim, she avows her love for Woodville. But her virginal presence calms his passion. Her avowal of love disarms him. His better nature is aroused, and he wakes her only to soothe her wild fears and confess his whole course of treachery and baseness. This confession, strong in his resolve to make amends, he repeats next morning to his host and fellow guests, as did Mr. H. A. Jones's Judah before him. But his ignominious departure for his native land does not take place before Miss Arlington's let him know that his remorse and atonement have brought her "happiness, not sorrow," and that eagerly she will look for his return when the new life just begun has completely effaced the old.

The one obvious criticism to pass is that 'The Charlatan' is no charlatan. Moreover, if he can by an exercise of will throw a girl into an hypnotic sleep and in that state compel her to traverse a terrace, enter a stranger's room, and reveal the close-locked secrets of her heart, he can surely induce his "subject" to receive a "brain-impression" of the person engrossing her thoughts. But apart from this contradiction, Woodville's character is so interestingly drawn, and above all this hypnotic Hindoo is so superbly played by Mr. Tree, that no amount of criticism of this kind can diminish the effect of the piece. Full of "picture," glowing with colour, the drama is an admirable composition of memorable scenes, and in the hands of other actors would no doubt be impressive enough. But Mr. Tree, most cleverly assisted by Mrs. Tree, makes far more of it than that. The romantic glamour they cast over the well-poised, skilfully-contrasted central figures is a very triumph of imagination and skill. Their handling of the third act the dangerous scene of the sleepwalking and Woodville's startling volte-face is quite masterly. On the one hand the suggestion of turbulent passion beneath an almost unruffled exterior, the throes of moral anguish, the bitterness of the man's voluntary humiliation; on the other, the impression of girlish innocence, of childlike fear, of touching indifference to her own peril in the face of her lover's shame, could hardly have been more simply or more powerfully conveyed. Indeed, Mr. Tree's impassive, dignified Oriental, sparing of gesture but lavish of facial play, commanding in manner and look, sallow and sleek, with raven hair, and strange lustrous eyes, must rank with the most striking creations which even he has accomplished.

Honours yet remain for division among the minor players, or rather players of minor parts, despite the brilliant and overshadowing success of Mr. and Mrs. Tree. Mr. Fred Kerr shows us a half-fledged Juzon Prall in the intellectual fop Mervyn Darrell, and his diverting work in "Judah" is the measure of his success and drollery here. The beautiful Lady Carlotta requires only a girl with beauty and a cheery manner, which are quite the least important qualifications possessed by clever Miss Lily Hanbury. Mr. Nutcombe Gould presents another courtly old peer, and sets an example in bearing and manner by following which the boorish Lord Dewsbury of Mr. Fred Terry never at home in these modern plays of restrained passion and unobtrusive feeling would become more acceptable. There is an excellent little study of character by Mr. Holman Clark of Professor Marrables, a scientist "too old to have formed any opinions," and very hazy about the existence of the soul, of which he "has not verified the fact." And with pretty Miss Irene Vanbrugh as a sweet girl graduate addicted to Paracelsus and snubbing her mother, and Mr. Charles Allan as a trimming, time-serving dean, the cast is complete. The play was received with great warmth, as well it might be, for though Mr. Buchanan's social satire may not strike very deep, it furnishes a highly effective background for a picturesque drama of emotion and intrigue, and provides Mr. and Mrs. Tree with characters in which they play with exquisite art and extraordinary effect.

'The Theatre', Vol XXIII, March, 1894.