STORY OF THE PLAY
A performance of sheer delight, wonder and surprise! That was my impression after witnessing Mr. Granville Barker's production of "Twelfth Night." The traditions of a life-time torpedoed into infinity! Every accepted canon of stage mounting thrown to the winds! For what? The quaint simplicity of a child's Christmas Toy Box! As Dick Swiveller would say, "it's a stupendous, unmitigated staggerer."
From my old-fashioned standpoint I might argue that Mr. Barker has avoided one extreme to plunge into another, but what avails argument when pleasure takes the helm and carries one away into a veritable Port of Enchantment? And then it must be remembered - or I consider it so - that "Twelfth Night" is something of a fairy tale. There is an enormous amount of "make believe" about it.
Viola's disguise, her affection for the Duke, Olivia's sudden infatuation for Orsino's youthful emissary, and her inability to distinguish between Viola and Sebastian, savour more or less of the Picture Story Book. Moreover, the farcical element plays nine pins with the poetical sentiment, so much so that one can scarcely accept the latter as having anything but a remote association with genuine feeling. Granted that I am but partially right in my contention then it must be admitted that "Twelfth Night" is a curiously ill-balanced play, and that it is better rather to labour its extravagant side than to emphasize its romantic tendency.
Perhaps, some day, Mr. Oscar Asche will give us his farcical interpretation and repeat the success he achieved with "The Taming of the Shrew."
With regard to Mr. Norman Wilkinson's share in the production one cannot but congratulate him on the delicate sense of colour which governs his whole scheme. In several of the scenes photography was hopelessly handicapped and their quiet beauty must necessarily escape the reader. But, in any case, we show enough to demonstrate that Mr. Wilkinson's achievement is something quite out of the common, and that is quaintness and originality are not marred by extravagant eccentricity.
It is not my purpose to enter into any detailed examination of the various characters. With the exception of the almost inconceivable vanity of Malvolio the psychology of the comedy has no particular interest, nor can I go so far as to agree with Mr. Barker that it is "the last play of Shakespeare's Golden Age" unless his interpretation of "Golden" differs widely from mine. I agree with Mr. Barker's theory in his preface to the Savoy acting edition, that there is every evidence to show that the play was designed for rapid performance and without those agonising entractes which the super-splendid production if the millionaire manager entail upon an audience.
It was probably this swiftness of action, this spontaneity of speech, this simple directness of purpose, that was largely responsible for the unexpected pleasure which the performance afforded me. I had no desire for any further intervals than the two provided by Mr. Barker, and I should have been quite content for them to have been reduced by one.
It is not my custom in these pages to consider the acting from a strictly critical point of view, and what has been said above sufficiently indicates that nothing went amiss, and that I was as well pleased with the mannish strut and bearing of Miss Lillah McCarthy as with the feminine sweetness of Miss Evelyn Millard. A word of praise is due to Miss Nellie Chaplin for her admirable arrangement of Old Music, and Mr. Hayden Coffin's voice remains as youthful as his manner and figure.
B.W. FINDON.
SCENES FROM THE PLAY
