The Profligate 2

The Profligate 2

“It is a good and soothfast saw;

Half-roasted never will be raw;

No dough is dried once more to meal,

No crock new-shapen by the wheel;

You can’t turn curds to milk again,

Nor Now, by wishing, back to Then;

And having tasted stolen honey,

You can’t buy innocence for money.”

 

 

 

 

ACT I.

 

“THIS MAN AND THIS WOMAN.”

 

_London; Furnival’s Inn_;

Mr. MURRAY’S _Room at_ Messrs. CHEAL & MURRAY’S.

 

 

ACT II.

 

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

 

_Florence; On the Road to Fiesole; The Loggia of the Villa

Colobiano._

 

 

ACT III.

 

THE END OF THE HONEYMOON.

 

_The same place._

 

 

ACT IV.

 

ON THE THRESHOLD.

 

_London; The Old White Hart Hotel, Holborn_;

Mr. MURRAY’S _Sitting-Room_.

 

 

TIME--THE PRESENT DAY.

 

The Incidental Song with Guitar Accompaniment, sung by Mr. AVON SAXON,

has been kindly composed by SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.

 

THE NEW SCENERY PAINTED BY MR. HARFORD.

 

 

Probably few who were present on this occasion will need to be reminded

of the impression made upon the audience by the new play, or of the

plaudits with which it was greeted. The success that attended the

initial representation was echoed for the most part in the chorus of

criticism. On all sides the new play was greeted with warm words of

welcome, even when these words were qualified by serious critical

strictures; the pessimists regarded it at least as an oasis in the

desert of our modern drama, while the optimists hailed it as the herald

of a bright new era of English dramatic literature. The various voices

of criticism were, in fact, unanimous for once in regarding this as an

artistic event of quite unusual importance, even while they were raised

to question certain psychological and ethical elements of the play in

relation to actual human experience.

 

It does not come within my province here to discuss the several points

of controversy, the various critical objections urged against the

play, but merely to recall them as a matter of theatrical history. So

be it remembered that the central motive of the story was condemned

as being fantastically strained, for the simple reason that at this

end of the nineteenth century the mental condition of Leslie Brudenell

was inconceivable, the position therefore being untenable from the

point of view of real life. It was further urged that any right-minded

young wife would have submissively accepted the situation in the true

wisdom of modern cynicism, or that Dunstan Renshaw would have turned

round upon her and with brutal frankness revealed to her that her

disillusioning was only the common experience of all wives, and that

she must bow to the inevitable and make no fuss. It was laid down

as law moreover that, as a leopard cannot change its spots, so can

no man who has once lived evilly be influenced to a better, a purer

life; that profligate once, profligate he must remain for evermore.

Then Hugh Murray, the serious-minded, lofty-natured lawyer, who can

never restrain his tongue when he sees wrong-doing, but can be nobly,

piteously silent when he must bury his love deep down in his lonely

life until it nearly breaks the heart of him--he was found by certain

critics to be impossibly unreal and even comic. It was discovered, too,

that the office of Messrs. Cheal and Murray was in Furnival’s Inn,

Fairyland--that such proceedings as were witnessed in that office could

never have been possible in Holborn.

 

Those who made all these discoveries charged “The Profligate” on this

score or that with being untrue to nature or false to art. Yet Mr.

Pinero, in essaying to deal dramatically with a moral problem in a

manner which, while neither cynical nor commonplace, should still be

in touch with human sympathy and possible experience, appears to have

deliberately set himself to conceive a group of characters, natural yet

not ordinary, which should embody his ideals, and with a sufficient

sense of actuality evolve the tragic recoil of sin, the dramatic

pathos of innocence in contact with the irony of life, the exquisite

influence of purity. Whether Mr. Pinero succeeded in carrying out his

idea or not, even the severest of his critics could not deny this

play respectful consideration. “A real play at last,” cried one; “a

faulty play with one faultless act,” was another’s summing-up after his

first enthusiasm had cooled in the refrigerator of time; while yet a

third recorded that “no original English play produced on our stage

for many a day has stirred its audience so deeply at the time of its

representation, or has sent them home with so much to think over, to

discuss and to remember.”

 

“The Profligate” was performed eighty-six consecutive times at the

Garrick Theatre with considerable success, and, as I believe some

impression to the contrary prevails, I may be pardoned for adding,

with results very satisfactory to Mr. Hare’s treasury. The season

coming to an end on July 27, the Garrick closed, and Mr. Hare took

“The Profligate” on a brief provincial tour. At the Prince of Wales’s

Theatre, Birmingham, on September 2, it was received with extraordinary

enthusiasm, the local critics poured forth eulogy upon eulogy, and

for the next five nights the house was crammed. From Birmingham the

play went to Manchester, where it was produced at the Theatre Royal,

on September 9, and performed there nine times. But the Manchester

critics, though respectful in their attitude, were sparing in their

praise. They complained that Mr. Pinero was neither Dumas nor Augior,

compared him with Georges Ohnet, and found fault with his metaphors.

And the playgoers of Cottonopolis were depressed, and bestowed such

scant favour upon the play that Mr. Hare determined to occupy the

last three nights of his engagement with a mirthful adaptation of

“Les Surprises du Divorce,” and the Manchester folk then attended the

theatre in their numbers, and laughed, and were happy again.

 

A triumph, however, was in store for “The Profligate” at Liverpool.

On September 23, and during the rest of the week, it was given at the

Shakespeare Theatre, and press and public alike greeted Mr. Pinero’s

play with acclaim. Then Mr. Hare returned to town with his company,

and reopened the Garrick with “The Profligate” on Wednesday, October

2. Again was criticism busy with the play, and the praise of some had

cooled, and the praise of others had warmed, but the original “run”

of the play had been interrupted in the midst of its prosperity,

Mr. Hare had resigned his part to an actor of less influence and

distinction, and after forty-five more performances it was thought

politic to withdraw the play. The notable fact remains, however, that

while theatrical audiences were still being encouraged to expect “comic

relief” and melodramatic sensation, a serious English drama, which made

no concession to either, had been performed one hundred and fifty-three

times within a few months, with profit to author and to manager.

 

But although “The Profligate” had been withdrawn from the boards of the

theatre, its influence was still active. It commanded a hearing beyond

the footlights, even on the platform of the Literary and Scientific

Institute. Mr. Pinero was invited by the committee of the Birkbeck

Institution to read his play there, and this he did on the evening of

May 16th, 1890, with such marked success that he has since been invited

to repeat the reading at many of the leading institutions in the

provinces.

 

But the theatrical career of “The Profligate” was to take a wider

range. The voice of the British dramatist was to be heard in the land

of the foreigner; but it spoke in the necessarily mimetic tones of

adaptation, and the tongue was Dutch. “The Profligate,” bearing the

title of “De Losbol,” was produced in Amsterdam on November 30, 1889,

under the personal supervision of Mr. J. T. Grein, at the Municipal

Theatre, which has since been burnt down. Only a partial success is to

be recorded, the play having enjoyed but a brief career, as it did also

at the Hague, where the production took place at the Royal Theatre.

The Dutch critics were for the most part patronising and lukewarm,

patronising because the play was English, lukewarm because the author

had not treated his theme after the cynical and pessimistic methods of

certain modern French writers. But one of the most prominent critics of

Holland was fain to admit, in the _Algemeen Handelsblad_ of Amsterdam,

that “viewed from an English standpoint, ‘The Profligate’ may certainly

be called a remarkable drama,” and that “it is a legitimate play

with a properly worked-out plot, although it contains a good deal of

coincidence, and shows a want of spirit in the dialogue.”

 

“The Profligate” is next heard of in Germany, where “The Magistrate”

and “Sweet Lavender” already enjoyed popularity; but there the voice of

the author was almost lost in the falsetto tones of the adapter. Dr.

Oscar Blumenthal, a well-known German _littérateur_ and the popular

director of the Lessing Theatre in Berlin, undertook to introduce

Mr. Pinero’s play to German playgoers. But Dr. Blumenthal has won

reputation as a wit and a humorist, and any work from his pen must make

his audience laugh before everything; so he appears to have adopted

very drastic measures in preparing “The Profligate” for the German

theatre. He has in fact transformed a serious drama of English life

into a frivolous comedy of Parisian manners; innocence is turned into

intrigue, the betrayed maiden becomes the scheming adventuress, the

play terminates with a laugh, and it is called “Falsche Heilige”--which

may be translated as “False Saints.” But the result is popular success.

 

The first performance took place on Friday, February 13, of th