"DRINK," AT THE ADELPHI THEATRE.
MR. CHARLES READE'S work, whether it be the com- position of novels, or the adaptation to Stage purposes of his own or other writers' fiction, is generally distinguished by clearness. An exception to this rule is, however, furnished by his dramatic version of L'Assommoir, under the title of Drink. Although, to a certain extent, Mr. Charles Reade has modified the revolting brutality of a production which it is to be regretted he should ever have touched, he has not handled the whole play with his accustomed skill. In par- ticular, he seems not to have made up his mind whether the wretched creatures whom he imperfectly deodorises by substitut- ing the state of marriage for that of concubinage—in which, as a matter of course, M. Zola represents his dramatis person—are French or English workmen. They talk now like the former and again like the latter, and their ways are a mixture of both. To make a Parisian zingueur call his comrades "old chap," and talk of "a little girl as won't eat soup," just after he comes in singing G-ounod's " Serenade " in the original French, is a bewildering incongruity ; and these are only samples, taken at random, of the general haziness of the piece in this respect. The dance in the garden of the Cafe on the wedding-day of Coupeitu and. Gervaise is, of course, essentially Parisian—a reminiscence of vanished Mabille—but the teetotaller's address is distinctly Cockney. This want of clearness would be fatal to the artistic character of the piece, if it had any such character—apart from the acting —to lose ; but it has none. To apply the test of artistic handling to such a theme as this is a degradation of the very idea of art, an outrage to it, as great as the existence of the "school" of which M. Zola is the head is to literature. We appeal on this point from Mr. Reade the adapter to Mr. Reade the author, and we confront him in the former character with It's Never Too Late to Mend, as a conclusive protest against his having, in the latter, given us so unredeemed a picture of misery and depravity, so hateful an exhibition of pessimism and. godlessness, as Drink. In both cases he is interpreted by an actor whose extraordinary power carries away the audience, in the one, into admiration of the reformed thief, in the other, into a hOrror-struck fascination by the hopeless drunkard; but with what different feelings do we watch the develop- ment of the fate of Robinson and that of Coupeau I The first is a moral and edifying study ; the existence, the authority, the power, and the grace of God ; the place of religion in the world's economy ; the claims of justice and those of mercy ; the sweetness, hope, and charity, without which this life would be intolerable and impossible ; the influence of brave, good men, who fear and serve God, and are permitted to see some fruit of their labours,—are all manifested in It's Never Too Late to Mend.
What is there in L'Assomnoir that Mr. Charles Reads should have plunged his hand into such seething pitch ? A moral protest against the evil of drink ? No, this cannot be pleaded, for Coupeau is not a drunkard by deliberate choice; he is simply the victim of chance, or of malignant fate, accord- ing to the interpretation we choose to put upon M. Zola's pur- pose, which is heinous either way. Not even le Dieu des bounce gens " exists for the soulless creatures to whom Mr. Charles Reads imputes an inconsistency, creditable, indeed, to him and to that public opinion which it conciliates, but which M. Zola would naturally ridicule ; they are mere working animals, moved by the lowest impulses, and fulfilling the worst of desti- nies, in the worst of all possible worlds. There is not a ray of light, not a gleam of faith, hope, or charity throughout the whole piece. Of the people who mean to do well, the teetotaller is a fanatic, and the good-natured friend of Gervaise is a fool; and the bit of clap-trap about the Cure which Gervaise utters, as she is supposed to be dying in the snow, is merely another well-meant but ineffectual concession to decency on the part of the adapter. There is but one term, and that belongs exclusively to the language which has reached its deepest degradation in the "school" of M. Zola, to describe the picture presented to us by D ink,—it is la erapule. We would rather not owe that picture, even at second-hand, to the artist who drew for us Mr. Eden and David Dodd.
It is, therefore, without prejudice to our opinion that L'Aesornnzoir should have been left to flourish on a soil un- happily fertile in unclean things of its kind, that we turn to the consideration of the acting of Drink, and are met with a diffi- culty. It is this,—how to describe in terms that shall not seem hyperbolical the impression produced by Mr. Charles Warner's performance of the part of Coupeau. It is an unexpected impression ; nothing that one has previously seen him do prepares one for the extraordinary power, the awful realism, the greatness of his acting, for greatness it is, hideous though the degradation be which he represents.
The subtlety of that true touch in It's Never Too Late to Mend when, before the audience recognise the presence of the police upon the scene, the jaunty, jolly, dandy Tom Robinson, turns, every limb of him, every tone of' him, into the slinking London thief, "wanted," and well aware that the game is up, shows that Mr. Charles Warner is a master of the finer shades of his art; but the raes that usually fall to his share give him little chance of impressing this on the public. In the character of Coupeau he gets the chance, as 'well as an opportunity of displaying his almost exuberant power, and he avails himself of both with an ability which we believe to be unequalled on the English Stage at the present time. Any one who has studied Mr. Warner's Othello will be prepared for his rendering tenderness and remorse as they are rarely ren- dered; but none the less wonderful will be found that episode in the terrible death-scene in Drink, when the poor, mad wretch has a momentary gleam of reason, by whose light he sees that the " devil " whom he has been striving to kill is his own child, the little, starving Nana. His cry roots one's feet to the ground; his face suspends one's breathing with horror and pity ; there is a supreme agony in them almost unbearable. When the fall upon the floor comes, and the woman's cry of "He is dead I" the relief is real, testified to by calming pulses and freely-drawn breath. That the whole performance is a masterpiece, is not, we imagine, to be questioned, but it is not improbable that its exceedingly painful nature may interfere with the general recog- nition of those great qualities in Mr. Warner's acting which it reveals, and which make it well worth while to endure the sight of so much that is simply odious, The genial, unsuspicious kindliness, almost incredulous that Lantier can seriously mean to be such a villain to Gervaise, that distinguishes Coupeau in the first act, is carried all through, until the stroke of fate falls.
Coupeau is a fine fellow (his manliness is more English than French), with a very genial way of making love, a hearty good-will to his work, and a frank contempt for loafers and topers. With the scene of Coupeau's marriage to Ger- vaise (fairly acted by Miss Amy Roselle), the subtlety and purpose of Mr. Warner's rendering of the part reveal them- selves; the careless defiance of temptation ; the yielding, partly to flattery, partly to ridicule ; the growing excitement and loss of self-control, the sudden access of regret—perhaps presenti- ment—as he turns away from the dancers, and buries his head in his arms on the table, then turns to them again with forced spirits ; the passionate love and protection with which he clutches Gervaise, when Lantier stands before them, to blast their sight ; with these, the audience begin to appreciate the power of the actor and. the closeness of the study. With the fall of the bright, happy, young workman from the roof, just after a pretty scene with his wife and child, admirably acted, and in which Mr. Warner conveys with great skill the in- articulateness of the workman, and how he helps him- self out with hint, and push, and laughter (this, too, more English than Preach), all is changed. The sorrow, the shame, the degradation, to culminate in the most frightful spectacle ever presented, as we believe, on any stage, set in ; and from that moment until the end there is a growing development of power and skill for which no previous experience can have prepared the audience, and which is unrivalled within the knowledge of the present writer. The change in Coupeates aspect when his treacherous comrades induce him to enter the Assommoir, is of itself a triumph of art; but what is to be said of the terrible scene that follows,—the sincere resistance, the weakness, the physical craving, the fear of ridicule, the stung pride, the furtive looks at the filled glass, then the reck- lessness, the rage, the horrible wager, and the ruin ? Only this,—that nothing in acting could surpass them, and that they horrify and offend like reality.
Then comes the dreadful climax, and we see Coupeau, released from the hospital, and brought back to his starving wife and child. First we see his hand, shrunken, deformed, shaking, steal along the door, and it is enough. The transformation of that hand is a preparation for all the rest,—for the shrunken. limbs, the bowed head, the rounded back, the extinct voice, with the dreadful " roup " of the drunkard in it ; the trembling of every limb that never ceases for one instant, the creeping cold,. the burning heat, the faint sickness, the craving thirst, the lamentable, half-disgusted hunger ; the abject selfishness, the craven fear, the vacant musing, the joyless laughter, the sudden fury and horror, the vision of creeping things, the idly-busy picking of the useless fingers, the shivering of the body under the ragged clothing, now clutched across the breast, now torn pantingly open, and the fearful face r That face is no "make-up," though the mechanical skill of the stage is perfectly applied,—it is a triumph of acting ; the. delirium just gone through, the delirium just coming, the wreck and ruin of everything that once was in that self-destroyed
human being, metamorphosed by the vice which is his master and his torturer into something so unhuman that it has no name, are depicted in it with truth and force positively appal- ling. The face is haunting, with its bloated sickliness, its pig- gish, sunken eyes, with no power in them to express anything that is not abject fear or the ravening lust of drink, its streaming sweat, and loose, blubbering, slavering lips ; its horrid depravity,. and its forlorn despair. The acting of that last scene is worthy of the face; nothing to surpass it could, as we believe, be produced; but while we accord unqualified admiration and unmixed wonder,. we earnestly deprecate a "long run" for Driwk. Just because
this extraordinary performance proves that we possess in Mr. Charles Warner an actor hors ligne, is it all the more earnestly to be hoped that he will not waste such powers on a part entirely unworthy of them, and one which must exhaust his energies and depress his nerves.
The play is well acted throughout, except in the case of the gentleman who plays the part of Lantier. We congratulate him upon his incapacity to embody that loathsome conception ; we are glad to believe that no English actor will ever be found to get into the leprous skin of the vile voyou.
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