A QUEEN'S LOVE ROMANCE By EDWARD MORTON ("Mordred" of The Referee).
As the romantic hero of what is called, in the language of the theatre, a "costume play," who is there to compare with Mr. Lewis Waller? Who?
Like Brutus in the play, "I pause for a reply." It is not too much to say that Mr. Waller looks better, seems even more at his ease, in silk and satin, in doublet and hose, than in the ordinary clothes of our everyday life. He has not alone the deportment for this sort of thing, he has the grand manner; and not only the grand manner, but just the sonorous voice for it. He wears a sword as another man carries a walking stick. To say so much is enough. The news that he contemplates playing "Cyrano de Bergerac" is good hearing, for there is surely not an actor on our stage to-day who can get nearer to the great character of that great play - certainly not the accomplished comedian who was, for once, out of his depth when he attempted to play Cyrano. It is a part for Mr. Waller to Waller in, if the expression may be allowed to pass. The verb does not exist, but it is the only way to describe the art of this most popular actor in a single word.
Mr. Lewis Waller has Cyrano's quality of "panache," or, I should say, all the qualities which are assumed in that one word: the proud spirit, the high courage, the imposing style of doing things, as it were, with a flourish - in effect, the "panache" of Cyrano de Bergerac. The actor is just now in fine feather - which is perhaps the nearest equivalent one can get in English to the French word "panache" - in the new piece at the Lyric Theatre, and Mr. Lewis Waller is cutting a most unmistakable dash as the valiant hero of "Sir Waiter Ralegh," the new romantic play by Mr. William Devereux. If the character of Ralegh, as it is defined by the dramatist, cannot be said to have the depth and variety of Cyrano de Bergerac, Mr. Waller's performance reveals to perfection some of the most engaging aspects of this favourite actor's talent. It would be too much to say of Mr. Wailer's Ralegh, as M. Rostand says so very graciously in the dedication of "Cyrano de Bergerac" to Coquelin, that the soul of the man has entered into the body of the actor. It is not the purpose of the author of "Sir Walter Ralegh" to make a searching study of the character and fortunes of the high-souled Englishman as history has made him known to us, but rather to give us a Walter Ralegh, the very flower of gallantry, who is as faithful in love and as dauntless in war as the young Lochinvar in the poem.
Sir Walter, to be sure, goes through many trials and dangers in the course of the play, and performs prodigies of valour, and the dramatist shows a proper understanding of his business in leaving him supremely happy in the end. This is as it should be. We could not bear to have it otherwise. The audience asks for nothing more and would be satisfied with nothing less. Yet the author shows a certain regard for historical perspective, and the spacious days of great Elizabeth, and great Elizabeth herself, are most effectively realised. The patriotic sentiments expressed by Sir Walter Ralegh, who was an Imperialist three hundred years before the term was invented, are appropriate to the period of the play as they are to our own times, and to hear Mr. Waller delivering his ringing speeches, fired with loyalty, courage and love of country, is to understand something of the character of a noble Englishman and of the noble heritage that is shared by all his countrymen. The familiar story of Sir Walter Ralegh's rich mantle being spread for the Queen to walk on is dexterously introduced. It was the obvious thing to do, perhaps, yet to have left it out would have been to have omitted something which everybody would naturally expect to find in such a play. The episode, indeed, makes a good beginning for the story of Ralegh's rise and fall in the favour of the Queen, for these issues furnish as much of the matter of the plot as his relations with Elizabeth Throgmorton, to whom he is married while he is a prisoner in the Tower. The scenes associating Ralegh with the introduction into this country of the potato and tobacco are most ingenuously contrived, and Ralegh's lines, "Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall," which Elizabeth is said to have capped so readily, are deprived of their point, not because they are slightly misquoted, but by reason that Ralegh in the play is simply the faithful and devout lover of Elizabeth Throgmorton and does not manifest the very least desire to "climb" to the position to which the Queen would fain elevate him. Not Joseph could have been more exemplary in his conduct towards Potiphar's incontinent wife than Sir Walter Ralegh appears in his repulse of the amorous advances of the Virgin Queen.
The plot of the play, indeed, turns not so much upon Ralegh's love for Elizabeth Throgmorton as upon his duty to the Queen, and in his love for the one and his loyalty to the other he is unswerving from beginning to end. But it is the imperious Sovereign who has the first place, if not in his heart, at least in his attentions. By all the rules of proportion it is Elizabeth Throgmorton who should be the character of most importance in the play, next to Sir Walter Ralegh, yet Elizabeth Throgmorton sinks into comparative insignificance beside the Queen, whose charactcr is carefully elaborated by the author and most skilfully played by Miss Winifred Emery, who gives us something more than the outward semblance of the Queen. It is the Queen's jealousy of Elizabeth Throgmorton's ascendancy over Walter Ralegh which is the primary cause of his imprisonment in the Tower, and it is to serve his own base ends that the Spanish Ambassador - the villain of the piece who combines high politics with low cunning - plays the part of best friend to the lover's. Ralegh, once married to Elizabeth Throgmorton, his influence with the Queen would be gone, so the wicked Spanish Ambassador argues, but he is mightily mistaken, for when the proper time comes the Queen can be as unselfish and magnanimous as the rest. The Spanish Ambassador is a sinister rascal, who comports himself with a most unceremonious disregard of his high office, yet Mr. C.W. Somerset contrives to endow the character with a certain amouot of dignity and distinction, and the actor very cleverly transposes melodrama to the key of comedy.
Between his love for Elizabeth Throgmorton and his duty to the Queen Sir. Walter has a busy and exciting time of it. He is a prisoner in the Tower when he hears of a plot to murder the Queen, and he makes his escape by dropping from a window overlooking the river, just in time to foil the conspirators. With the chief conspirator he engages in deadly combat, which seems a very reckless thing for him to do, considering the Queen's life depends solely upon his being there to warn her and protect her from her enemies. If he had been overcome by his adversary! But we have no fear for Mr. Waller. Come one, come all, we know that he is more than a match for the best of them. The duel is one of the most desperate encounters, not, only with regard to the issues involved, but in the conduct of the encounter, in which we have ever seen Mr. Lewis Waller engaged. The light fades as the fight goes on, and Sir Walter catches up a flaming torch. So he fights with a sword in one hand and the torch in the other, and pinks his man just in time to rescue the Queen from the ambuscade into which she has been trapped. Pascal speculated upon the difference that it might have made to the world if Cleopatra's nose had only been a little longer. Fancy how the course of history might have been changed if Sir Walter Ralegh had not got there just in the nick of time to save Queen Elizabeth's life!
It, is not to be expected that the actions or the characters of a play of the class to which "Sir Walter Ralegh" belongs shall conform strictly with the ordinary rules of human conduct. Sir Walter is a figure of heroic proportions; he is "larger than life" and, as such, we are not disposed to censure the recklessness with which he exposes himself to danger at every turn. On the contrary, we admire him for it. We should be disappointed if we did not see him facing fearful odds with a light heart. We want to see him sweeping everything before him, and the dramatist has bountifully provided Mr. Waller with the means of gratifying the taste of the audience. For the exhibition of gallantry, both in fighting and in making love, he has some fine chances, although he is, perhaps, too much concerned with business of State and too little occupied with his own affairs. Devotion to his Queen and country is the motive by which he is actuated, rather than love for Elizabeth Throgmorton; and of the two Elizabeths it is the Royal lady who is the object of the author's particular attention.
Miss Lilian Braithwaite, who plays Elizabeth Throgmorton, acts very graciously in her scenes with her lover, but the sentimental interest is subordinated to his duties to the Queen, in which all that is purely sentimental is contributed by the Sovereign lady alone. In the character of Queen Elizabeth, which is played by Miss Winifred Emery, the dramatist has very carefully, yet unobtrusively, reproduced many of the least amiable attributes which history assigns to the Virgin Queen; and these are effectively illulstrated by the actress, who gives us such a perfect picture of Elizabeth that she might have stepped out of a frame at Hampton Court. Miss Emery wears the farthingale with an air and even the wings, for which the history of costume no doubt affords authority, do not seem unbecoming to her, although pedantic accuracy in dress, or in any other particular, may be unduly insistcd upon; and, as Queen Elizabeth said to the Mayor of Dover in the Harrow School song, "Speeches are things we chiefly bless when once we have got them over." The greatness of the Queen and the littleness of the woman - her parsimonies and her jealousies - everything is clearly brought out; and in a character of such variety Miss Emery's talent finds full expression. It is in the nature of romantic drama, if not of the Queen as the dramatist has portrayed her, that she should be ultimately reconciled to the marriage of her favourite with Elizabeth Throgmorton, and the end of the play seems to give the audience a fair promise that Ralegh and his wife "lived happily ever after" - a promise which history so terribly belies.
Mr. Lewis Waller, one of the most popular actors on the English stage, was born at Bilbao, in Spain. His craving for the life of an actor led to his first appearance with the late J. L. Toole at Toole's Theatre, in 1883. The play was "Uncle Dick's Darling," and although the part was not a large one his efforts were crowned with success. As Orlando Mr. Waller toured the provinces with Madame Modjeska, an actress who created something of a sensation in her time. Her Rosalind is not yet forgotten by many of the playgoing public. With more or less success he then toured with Henry Neville in the "Ticket of Leave Man" and "Clancarty." It was in 1887 that Mr. Lewis Waller first attracted special attention. His performance of Ray Carlton in "Jack in the Box" received the highest commendations from the press of the time. To trace the reeord of such a career would need more space than we have at our disposal and we must pass over the actor's splendid achievements in such plays as "Pygmalion," "Broken Hearts," "The Profligate," "The Crusaders," "A Woman of No Importance," etc., etc., Without comment.
Mr. Waller has been associated with most of the best known actor-managers of our times, including Wilson Barrett, Sir John Hare, the Kendals, Mrs, Brown-Potter, Mrs. Langtry, Sir H. Beerbohm Tree, and Sir Charles Wyndham. He becamc co-lessee of the Shafteshury Theatre, with H.H. Morell, where they produced "The Manxman." In 1900 Mr. Waller, in conjunction with Mr. William Mollison, opened a successful season at thc Lyceum Theatre with a revival of "The Three Musketcers." As D'Artagnan in the last-mentioned piece, the name of Lewis Waller will be handed down to the coming generations. His impersonation of the character was a splendid piece of acting. A critic at the time described the performance in the following words: "Of course, Mr. Lewis Waller is the mainstay of everything. Mr. Waller gloried in the character; he looked and spake D'Artagnan to the life. He was a cavalier in spirit, speech and bearing; he acted with wonderful gallantry and devilment. Making love, fooling Richelieu, fighting the Queen's enemies - it was all the same to him; he carried the play along with him, shoulder high, to success. His nervousness at first was the very thing, his bravado always in the Dumasiest vein." In 1901 Mr. Waller leased the Comedy and produced "Monsieur Beaucaire." This Was one of many of the more recent successes. It ran for over four hundred nights with an ovation for Monsieur Beaucaire after each performance. As lessee and manager of the Imperial Theatre from 1902 he produced many plays, including a revival of "Monsieur Beaucaire." Alfred Sutro's "The Perfect Lover," produced in 1905, was a pronounced success. In 1906 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Brigadier Gerard" was produced, and revived later at the Lyric, as was also "Monsieur Beaucaire." In the title-role of "Othello" yet another leaf was added to Mr. Waller's wreath of laurel, to be followed by that of "Robin Hood," which was produced at the Lyric Theatre, after a short provincial tour with old favourites.
"Robin Hood" was honoured With a command performance at Windsor before the King and Queen. Another command performance took Mr. Lewis Waller to Windsor again in 1907, when he appeared as Hawkesley in "Still Waters Run Deep" before the King. In January last year "The White Man" brought all London to the doors of the Lyric, since when Mr. Waller's name has been associatcd with "The Duke's Motto," a revival of "Henry V.," etc., etc., and he is now delighting crowded houses as Sir Walter Ralegh in the play of that name at the same theatre. Mr. Waller's career has been described as a triumph of a pleasing individuality. His charm of manner, the breezy atmosphere that surrounds him, lending colour, vim, and life to otherwise colourless and lifeless parts, his buoyancy, his manliness are resistless to the average playgoer. At times he has selected parts that have not suited him, but where he has achieved a partial success others would have failed ignominiously. It is just that wonderful personality that may be regarded as Mr. Lewis Waller's greatest asset.
The opinions of the critics on Mr. Waller's performance in his latest production, "Sir Walter Ralegh" are on the whole favourable.
The Daily Telegraph dealing exhaustively with the play says: "In short, he behaves as a hero enacted by Mr. Lewis Waller ought to behave - tender in love and gallant in war. And of course the part suited Mr. Waller to perfection, and gave him a new and valuable opportunity for revealing his most characteristic gifts. Mr. Waller can always make a play go, and pleased the audience from beginning to end. Enthusiastic calls and recalls after each curtain testified to the perennial and well deserved popularity of Mr. Waller."
The Evening Standard describes the performance: "Mr. Waller as Ralegh has only to do the things he has often done before, and he does them grandly. His voice, his manner, his virility and his tenderness are irresistible. He fights like a lion, loves like a Romeo, and outwits wickedness like an archangel. In every way he is the cavalier, without fear and without reproach."
Quoted also from the Morning Post is the following: "Mr. Waller played better than he has done for a long time. He has quite regained his wonderful ringing voice, and he was more serious, more still, and more dignified than usual. His acting called forth from the audience cheers and yells and screams of delight, and at the end he received a magnificent ovation."
The Era, the recognised organ of the profession, is deservedly flattering in its criticism: "As Sir Walter Ralegh, Mr. Lewis Waller had a part of the sort in which his soul delights; and his sword and dagger tight with Mr. Frank Woolfe, as John Savage, was a most thrilling, exciting, and popular performance. This combat alone was enough to make the success of the piece, and when to it were joined Mr. Waller's well-sustained energy and earnestness, his manly and chivalrous bearing, and his gallant gaiety, his triumph may be imagined."
The play is going well at the Lyric, and we are informed that the booking already runs well into January.
Although Miss Winifred Emery was gowned in the stiff fashion of other days for her impersonation of Good Queen Bess, she greeted me with the frank alertness of the twentieth century woman when I entered her dressing-room at the Lyric for the interview she had kindly promised THE PLAYGOER AND SOCIETY.
"I think my part in Sir Waiter Ralegh the finest that I have ever been asked to play, and one that gives me immense satisfaction in the playing," she said in reply to my first query. "The character of Queen Elizabeth has always attracted me, for it seems to embody all the weakness and strength, the smallness and the greatness, of woman's nature. Few women would have made better use of the almost autocratic power placed in her beautiful hands; history itself illustrates how much ill she might have done. Even at school my admiration for her, as woman and sovereign, caused some surprise, for most of my girl friends adored the beautiful and apparently ill-used Queen of Scots. We had many heated discussions on the qualities of the two women, and I was always made to admit that my favourite did misuse her royal prerogative in the execution of her cousin, but always maintained that the unfortunate Mary would not have forgiven as much as did Elizabeth.
"Another point of interest to me in the part is that it is the first time I have depicted an actual historical personage, royal or otherwise, on the stage. Even the dresses and accessories are interesting, for they are faithful copies, only slightly modified, of reliable paintings of Queen Elizabeth. My appearance in the dress I wear in Act II. always causes a wave of amusement in the house, but if my good friends in front could have seen me in the exact copy of the dress worn by the Queen their mirth would know no bounds. Personally, I was prepared to wear anything which would make my presentment of the part exact and complete, but Mr. Lewis Waller recommended some slight modification!
"The abrupt change from one mood to another? Well, is not such variableness essentially feminine? The woman of today may have learned to control her temper, but it is possible that by the habit of calm and judicious calculation she loses some of the spontaneous generosity which distinguished many of the actions of Queen Elizabeth. Do you wish me to tell you that the women of today are just as vain, as devoted to fashion, and as unscrupulous in their methods, when their hearts are set on personal adornment, personal favour, and personal advancement, as was Elizabeth? In spite of her many weaknesses, perhaps because of them, she was a true and permanent type of a strong-brained, capable woman, and I am proud to interpret her character as it is drawn, and drawn with care and insight, by Mr. William Devereux.
"About myself? Well, I have always had a great desire to play character parts. My father, as perhaps you know, was a fine exponent of such parts, but up to now, either from accident or because I have no special trick of manner or physique, I have played 'straight' parts. Now I have made a start with Queen Elizabeth I hope to continue and disguise my own personality in that of others. I believe that there is a public for good historical drama, well cast and staged, don't you?"
Remembering the phenomenal success achieved by at least two plays of this class during the last few years, I frankly agreed with Miss Winifred Emery.
"Now you are asking something a little out of my province," she said, as I introduced the subject of the censorship. "I leave all managerial matters to Mr. Cyril Maude, and I think he has given a decided opinion on the subject; but I shall do no harm in saying that I think the censorship a necessary part of the proper conduct of the stage. Few of those in actual management desire any alteration, I think."
This non-committal reply, accompanied by the deference to the opinion of a husband, which one hardly expects nowadays, led up to the query as to the extent of Miss Winifred Emery's sympathy with the woman's suffrage movement.
"I am heart and soul with any movement which will result in the betterment of the position of women generally, and especially that of women workers, although I am prepared to admit that women of the play are well looked after under the present regime. Whether or not the right to vote will be of continuous advantage to the community at large remains, of course, to be proved. It cannot be disputed that many women are more fully qualified mentally and socially than some men who enioy the privilege of voting: but, in spite of this, I sometimes wonder whether the cause is really worthy of the whole-hearted noble enthusiasm which lies like a gem in a crude setting of cheap martyrdom and unseemly brawls. No, I don't take an active part one way or the other. Most members of the profession, whether men or women, have to face the fact that the publicity of their calling induces undue interest in their personal movements, and gives, perhaps, more importance to an appearance at a meeting than was intended."
"A National Theatre? No, I don't think it is at all necessary, nor do I think it would be a success in the most glorious, most cosmopolitan, and withal most commercial city in the world!"
MISS WINIFRED EMERY - It is interesting to note in collecting facts of Miss Winifred Emery's personal and professsional career that her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were actors of repute in their day. She was born at Manchester, made her first stage appearance as a child in Liverpool, appearing in London at the age of thirteen at the Princess's, and at the Imperial Theatre some four years later. Space will not permit of our recordling all the parts Miss Winifred Emery has created and portrayed, but a glance at the list of managers under whom she graduated tells its own tale. An engagement to appear with Wilson Barrett in Leeds was succeeded by her accompanying him in the early eighties to the Court Theatre, where she understudied Madame Modjeska, as well as played important parts with that distinguished Polish actress. A short engagement with the successful Hare and Kendal management at the St. James's was followed by some years of work with Sir Henry Irving, interrupted occasionally by visits to the Vaudeville and elsewhere. Engagements at Terry's, the Vaudeville, and Drury Lane were succeeded by an appearance with Wilson Barrett in that fine but short-lived theatre, the New Olympic. After appearing at the Shaftesbury, the Avenue, and St. James's - playing Lady Windermere in "Lady Windermere's Fan" at the last-named house - she joined her husband, Mr Cyril Maude, at the Haymarket, and was seen in that successful series of plays commencing with "Under the Red Robe." After a regrettable absence from the stage for three years on account of serious illness, Miss Winifred Emery made a welcome reappearance as Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing" at His Majesty's, and is to-day able to say that she never felt better or more fit for work in her life.
MISS LILIAN BRAITHWAITE - Miss Lilian Braithwaite is distinctly an actress of temperament, and gives to every part she takes an air of completeness wholly devoid of any straining after effect. Traces of her work in old comedies and Shakespearian plays with Mr. William Haviland and afterwards with F. R. Benson's companies are to be found in her easy diction and careful study of the character she has to create. Her first London engagenment was with Fred Terry and his clever wife in "Sweet Nell of Old Drury," after a long tour under the same management, during which she played Celia to the Rosalind of Miss JuJia Neilson. Her sudden appearance in the front ranks of the profession, when she joined George Alexander to play leading lady in those plays which followed the production of "The Importance of Being Earnest " at the St. James's, was a well deserved reward for much study and hard work.
MR. SHIEL BARRY - Mr. Shiel Barry commenced his theatrical career with Mr. Forbes Robertson, becoming assistant stage manager after a few years. His first appearance on the stage was made in Berlin as Fleance in "Macbeth," afterwards touring with "fit-ups," and as stage manager with "Whitewashing Julia." He made his first appearance in London as Michael O'Donoghue in "Peggy Machree" at Wyndham's. In 1906 he joined Mr. Lewis Waller to play in "The Harlequin King" at the Imperial Theatre, and has played under the same management ever since. Mr. Barry's impersonation of Francis Throgmorton is one of the best in the cast.
MR. HERBERT JARMAN - Mr. Herbert Jarman has a good number of Shakespearian impersonations to his credit, for he has played the Ghost in "Hamlet," Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing," Prince of Morocco in "The Merchant of Venice," Dromio in "The Comedy of Errors" Touchstone in "As You Like It," Quince in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Clown in "Twelfth Night," Mercutio in " Romeo and Juliet," Autolycus in "A Winter's Tale." There is little doubt that this breadth of experience in handling character parts enables him to represent "Long Jim" Ralegh's servant, with such gusto. There is nothing stunted about Mr. Jarman's reading of the part and his lies are prodigious.
MR. C.W. SOMERSET - Mr. C. W. Somerset's experience of the stage has been long and varied, for he was a member of the Craven-Robertson "Caste" Company in the seventies, and he has appeared in nearly every theatre in London. He toured his own companies in extensive provincial tours, and has taken part in some of Sir Herbert Tree's most important productions. His First London engagement was at the now demolished Olympic Theatre, afterwards appearing as Syward in the Drury Lane production of "Macbeth" in ibn 1882. A long series of successes followed, including the portrayal of the Old Earl in "Little Lord Fauntleroy," Digby Grant in "The Two Roses," Cyrus Blenkarn in "The Middleman," Sir Richard Shilliter, O.C., in "Lady Bountiful," Sir Herbert Tree's original part in "A Bunch of Violets," the Earl of Harpenden in "Boys Together." His Autolycus in "A Winter's Tale" and his Saunders in "Idols" are recent enough to be remembered by us all. As the Spanish Ambassador in "Sir Walter Ralegh " Mr. Somerset gives a fine and consistent presentment of a man subtle, proud, and vindictive, which must rank amongst his best performances.
MR. TOM HESLEWOOD - One would hardly credit the impersonator of the dignified Lord Burghley with being an adept in the designing of historical and other costumes, but that he has decided talent in this direction is evidenced by the accuracy of detail and appropriateness of design of those seen in "Sir Walter Ralegh" and such picturesque productions as "A Lady of Quality," "A Queen's Romance" (for the scenery and properties of which he was also responsible), "Hamlet," "The Harlequin King," and the Chelsea Pageant. His most picturesque parts have been Nero in "The Sign of the Cross" With Ben Greet, and Richelieu in "The Three Musketeers" with Lewis Waller. He also played Pistol in Calvert's revival of "Henry IV." at Manchester. In addition to being an actor and designer Mr. Heslewood is a dramatic author, and is responsible, with Mr. Laurence Irving, for "The Lion and the Unicorn."
MR. A.E. GEORGE - Mr. A. E. George, who is one of the group of conspirators who seek to dethrone Elizabeth and crown Mary, was intended for the profession of a schoolmaster, and was educated at the Choir School of Lincoln Cathedral. After considerable stage training in F. R. Benson's company he toured in South Africa with Miss Fortescue. His first London engagement was to play in "Rosemary" with Sir Charles Wyndham. Mr. George has played under varied management, and concluded a three years engagement with Sir. Lewis Waller prior to his rejoining him to play in "The Explorer." He played Aesop in "The Duke's Motto," Fluellen in "King Henry V.," the latter being one of his most successful impersonations.
SCENES FROM THE PLAY
)
