"THE ST. MARTIN'S PAGEANT."
ME. SHEPPARD, in a speech introducing The St. Martin's Pageant, performed in the course of the ceremonies celebrating the bicentenary of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, ex- pressly forbade us to regard it as a theatrical performance, but as he and his helpers have chosen to express the ideas which they wanted to convey to us in an aesthetic form, it is impossible not to judge the finished product by aesthetic standards. Of this sort of judgment The St. Martin's Pageant should not have been at all afraid.
I am not sure that I altogether approve of Mr. Laurence Housman's " book." His work displayed two faults. The general temper of the explanatory speeches of his Wayfarer, Critic and Beggar were, like Mr. Drinkwater's choruses in Abraham Lincaln, too elegiac and reflective to be suitable for the stage. Then, again, ho has allowed his loose blank verse, enlivened with a certain amount of rhyme, to lead him into some sloppy " poeticalities." For instance :— Wayfarer : "I would I were a Christian, are not you ? "
However, the general scheme of the pageant is admirable. It shows with great fairness and the most just admission of the reverse side of the tapestry " The Spirit of Christ working through the ages." The music, provided by a large choir and orchestra, was excellent and learned. As for the stage manage• ment, it was a triumph. There were one or two minor faults which an experienced producer might have helped to remedy, but the speed and accuracy with which one large elaborate tableau succeeded another was astonishing. Many of the tableaux, considering that probably a very limited amount of money might be spent on dress and accessories, were singuladY good and attractive. In one or two cases the visual effects could not have been bettered, for example, in the tableau representing " The Torture of the Heretics, Schismatics and Martyrs of Science and Religion."
The hall in which the pageant took place was crowded to its utmost capacity.. Surely it is a pity that so much fine work should only be shown to the public on two occasions. Is there no possibility of so interesting a piece of representation being repeated by way of a Christmas morality Y Taro.
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