12 MARCH 1910, Page 21

THE THEATRE.

THE WAY THE MONEY GOES.

IF the power to arrest and hold the attention of the audience and to move them deeply is the test of a good play, as we believe it is, Lady Bell's play, The Way the Money Goes, now being presented at the Royalty Theatre, must be regarded as in the fullest sense of the term a success. We are of course well aware that the old dramatic conventions have disappeared, and that no one now thinks it necessary to pay homage to the idols of Scribe and his school. Nothing could be more out of fashion than the maxim On ne fait pas les drames avec des mots raais avec des situations. The old con- ventions have, however, given place to a new series, and the most modern school of dramatic criticism would, we do not doubt, find almost as much to condemn in Lady Bell's play as in one that belonged to the ancient order. To begin with, they would condemn it as a tract, as a play with a purpose. Frankly, we like purposes in general, and Lady Bell's purpose in particular. Her play deals, and deals most dramatically, with the evils of betting,—evils which just now are in the minds of all those who care for the welfare of the working class. The play might, indeed, be described as a dramatic comment upon the book by Miss Loane which is reviewed in our issue of to-day. Miss Loane tells us how the money goes in countless poor households through foolish and ill-considered spending of all kinds, and how failure to resist the wiles of the tallyman, or the momentary help of the pawnshop, leads to borrowings at the rate of 70 or 80 per cent., and the accom- panying waste, moral and economic. Lady Bell strikes a note of deeper tragedy in her picture of life in a North Country town. She shows us incidentally how the money goes to the tallyman and to that strangest of usurers, the seller of credit notes, but the real interest of the piece centres in the moral insanity of betting. In North Country towns the

betting-tout has of late got hold of the women, and tempts them not so much by the desire to back a sporting fancy as by the longing for a little ready money of their own. We are shown how a poor man's home, in which the young wife and the husband both bet, is utterly ruined ; then how the wife of a saving and ultra-respectable but hard-souled man, in a moment of revolt from the dullness of her life, is tempted into having a few shillings on a race; and finally, how the " bit on " ends in the pawnshop, the moneylender, and the County Court summons. Expressed as we have expressed it, this may sound a dull recital ; but so skilfully has Lady Bell contrived her scenes, and so poignant and natural is her dialogue, that she raises a true tragic issue, and manages to make us feel in its most vivid form the sympathy of comprehension for the woman who bets. Quite excellent is the scene with which the play opens. We are in the street in a Northern industrial town on a Friday morning. The women stand at their doors and gossip of their husbands and their children, and bow the world goes with them. We do not, however, desire to tell the story of the play, but merely to advise our readers to see it. They will not only be interested from the dramatic point of view, but will be awakened to the need for keeping the evil of betting within bounds.

We must not leave Lady Bell's play without speaking of the admirable way in which it is presented. Nothing could have been better both in make-up and acting than Mrs. Riggs (Miss Agnes Hill), the slatternly, good-tempered, good- hearted " neighbour." The part of Mrs. Holroyd, the heroine, is one of no small difficulty, but Miss Helen Haye, a singularly able actress, endowed it with a real sense of dignity, and even fascination, without in any sense depart- ing from the realities of life. She was the true workman's wife, not the Tragedy Queen who had strayed into blue cotton. Mrs. Tarlton (Miss May Congdon) also deserves commendation. John Holroyd was of necessity an ungrate- ful part. How may the unbending and virtuous work- man be depicted sympathetically and without a sense of disagreeable harshness ? The thing sounds impossible, and yet Mr. Nye Chart managed somehow in the third act to make us feel not only for but with him. He conveyed through- out the play a touch of pig-iron simplicity,—a sort of girder-like humanity which was distinctly moving. He looked his part to perfection. Slark (Mr. Reginald Dane), the betting-tout, was no doubt an easy character to act, but nevertheless it was distinctly well performed, as, indeed, were all the minor parts.

It may perhaps be said that where the play is wanted is not in a West End theatre, but in the playhouses of the people either in the East End, in the London suburbs, or in the great manufacturing towns. We agree. We sincerely hope that Lady Bell's play will have a wide publicity in Lancashire and Yorkshire and the Midlands,—the places where the betting fever is now at its height. If it is a tract, it is certainly a tract which is much needed, and which will, we believe, carry conviction. It is a great mistake to suppose that working men do not want to hear about other working men. That is just what they do want to hear about in the theatre and in literature, provided that the characters they see portrayed are true working men and women, and not dummies. Lady Bell has given us the authentic brand.

PAUCIS NOTUS.