The Theatre
[" THE LADY WITH A LAMP." BY REGINALD BFRICOEY. AT THE ARTS THEATRE CLUB. " FASHION : OR LIFE IN NEW YORK.' By Miss MowAn. • AT THE GATE THEATRE STUDIO.] - . REGINALD BERKELEY'S CAPTAINREGINALD BERKELEY'S new play has made a big success at the Arts Theatie—the biggest success seen there since the production of Young Woodley. Whether it -succeeds as well at the Garrick, where it is to be reproduced next week, may depend a good deal, I think, on the author's pluck in cutting " the weaker psssages.
These, surely, are • the sentimental scenes, destined to show that the iron-willed Florence Nightingale had her soft side. We can guess that. We can easily believe it. We do not need to be reminded of it too insistently, by way of prelude to the main theme of the play, which illustrates Florence's inexhaustible energy, -her persistence, her ruthless zeal in " getting things done " during a long lifetime of incredible effort.
Very wisely, Captain Berkeley begins by showing us the youthful Florence, in her early home, settled amidst the placid conventions of a Victorian security, theoretically ruffled by " news Vona - nowhere "bjr• distant rumblings from denunciatory prophets, like Carlyle:- We. need that picture in order to image the daring of Florence's leap -into the unknown, and • perhaps also in order to understand the advantages, for the rebel, and pioneer, of a Victorian fixed income, almost untaxed 1_ And, for a moment or two— a few words. will Suffice vie may be- permitted the glimpse of the unexceptionable Young Man (Mr. Leslie- Banks) approved by Mrs. Nightingale ; proposing- to Florence ; and rejected by her in response to her call " from above. We do not need the long love -pass-age-Obliquely conveyed by reference to the - arbitration of Mrs. Nightingale's sylvan fountain ; for Captain Berkeley handles this poesy uncertainly, and anachronistically mingles . a sweet keepsake romanticism with a twentieth. century candour in allusion to sexual eternities. The fonntain shoidd- go ; even if we know, from Florence's journal (but- not from her recorded speech) that she had a " passional nature." And when Florence gets out to the Crimea, and begins her campaign with the lamp, there might also go—though it' is a larger sacrifice—the symbolical incident of her lover's landing, amongst the common wounded, and his agonized death ; for it all distracts attention and sympathy from the real Florence, whom, in later scenes, Captain Berkeley presents with always increasing force of firm imagination. Any wounded man would do for that Crimean episode. It was the Soldier as everlasting institution that Florence cared for ; as it was, in the abstract, the Nurse, the. Hospital, the System. Also it may be thought that the intervening character and feminine opposition of Lady Herbert, wife of Florence's pawn in the heroic game, too gulch melodramatizes the. conflict. „Lady . Herbert was there and must remain. But historically was she not amongst Florence's great admireis ? Need she survive into the last scene as personified remorse, forcing itself in vain upon Florence ? I don't think so ; and what appears too fantastic in this final picture would be attenuated, were Captain Berkeley content with his ironical presentation of a Lord Mayor and pensioners and officials, honouring the living corpse of Florence for dim achievements lost even out of her own faded mind. An admirable invention, needed for the last touch ! Florence Nightingale was Mortal. Beaten by nobody and nothing she was at last beaten by Time,, which indeed our present-day physicists know to be nothing—though unconquerable.
Little is wanted, then' to make. The Lady With a Lamp as thrilling a " history " as Abraham Lincoln, or even as St. Joan. Its initial conception derives, no doubt, frOm Mr. Lytton Strachey's study. But here his attitude of delicate, detached amazement that such things and persons can be, is replaced by one of greater admiration and pity.
- , Miss Edith Evans , cleverly manages to make herself look very like the real Florence. It is a relief to see her almost without her Ftestoration mannerisms ; but not quite without them—or .ivithout othersin the love passages. Her last scene was altogether admirable.. Miss Muriel Aked gives another of her studies in tremulous propriety, as Mrs. Nightingale. Miss Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies makes a perfect contrast to Florence, as Lady Herbert—according to the author's intention. _ The Gate Theatre has been " done up " ! In- Villiers Street, one no longer sits amidst dust and dinginess, but under a lemon-coloured velum—an impluvial veil— flashing over peacock blues.. It is a great improvement. And it would be a. greater improvement still if Mr. Peter Godfrey could abolish smoking for so small a barn. "The atmosphere of this place is like .the back of a kitchen flue," remarked an American lady behind me, at one of the undusted performances. Mr. godfrey's .productions are not always so gay that one can afford, in watching them, to fabe physical as well as mental agony. . .
This latest effort of his, however, is cheerful enough. It Cannot be truthfully described as a revival of Mrs. Mowatt's old play, which alarmed and pleased the rustic New York of 1845. It is a deliberate skit upon it, a guying of it a caricature of it. The fun is delicious ; but certainly not quite fair to the poor old thing, which, in its plot, is no more pre- posterous than plenty of our own utterly inexplicable crook dramas. Only -the language is too, too eloquent, and therefore funny us. , The interpolated songs which don't belong to t he period—one of them is as late as the late George Grossmith —affected me as rather unscrupulous attempts to mock our ancestors by snaking- them quainter, than they 'were, poor dears. But they are humorous in thernselves. It might be just as humorous, however, and even more interesting, if Mr. Godfrey would give us, some day, a piece from the okl repertory of that period—say, from- Wallack's Theatre : something like Central Park or Tom Taylor's once-famous Unequal Match. Let it play itself and see how it plays. Very curious Meanwhile, the Spectator, which was one of
the first to call attention -to the Gate Theatre in- its early home, may be permitted to congratulate, Mr. Godfrey. on his achieved success. Under the golden velum now sit whole Belles Assemblees of Coquettes and Beaux." Through that Gate now passes rank and fashion in furs ; and not only drab oddities ,in the search for something more advanced than the . suburbs and nearly as depressing.
. - RICHARD JENNINGS,
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