THE THEATRE.
"THE WAY OF THE WORLD" (LYRIC THEATRE, HAMMERSMITH).
CONGREVE'S Way of the World is apt to strike a modern audience, as do so many Restoration comedies, as a play of reaction.
There had been such an orgy of emotion, there had been religious convulsions, heart-tearing fighting against brothers, a martyred king, a government whose every action had a spiritual significance, griefs and-ecstasies, the wildest gaiety, poverty and confiscation, a terrifying fire and pestik nee, a
purification as alarming, a screwing-up of everyday life to an emotional tension that must be relaxed. Strained beyond bearing, most men called, in the name of sanity, for amuse- ments where their hearts could have a rest and where their feelings need not be engaged. Hard and cleaned of every emotion, dry and astringent, their comedy writers answered them.
Congreve saw the pathos of Lady Wishfort, that poor, ludicrous, deceived old-woman, and of Mrs. Marwood, who was so bitter and disillusioned, and the degraded hatefulness of Fainall. But he tried in his "play to harden his audience's heart against them.
But this mood did not last long.• Sterneis human, Richardson, melting ; people were soon fit even to hear Shakespeare again—Lear, Macbeth and Othello—while even in the adamant of some of the comedies we shall find " faults " where in a scrap of soil the tenacious plant of human feeling has rooted itself.
In The Way -of the World the plant has _flowered .sparsely but fragrantly. Congreve, having created his Circe's garden - of bulls and bears and guzzling pigs, could not resist making his Mirabell and Millamant show, at least in their scenes with each other, as real human beings with hopes and fears and vulnerable hearts.
The costumes and scenery by Miss Zinkeisen I did not very much like, but most of the acting is extremely good. Miss Edith Evans is admirable—perfect—as Millamant, both when she has to be a type and when she flowers into a human being. Miss Margaret Yarde, Miss Dorothy Green, Miss Taylor and Miss Elsa Lanchester all gave finished and distinguished performances, as did Mr. Nigel Playfair, Mr. Russell, Mr. Norman and Mr. Wincott (in a very small part). Mr. Robert Loraine as Mirabell was human and serious all through to the play's great loss, save at the few moments when humanity was required of him, when he was excellent. To be -credible Mirabell must be of an incredible fastidiousness and elegance, and must not give way to natural-feelings. Else how could he have -been, aa he-was, the intimate -of Fainall TARN
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