THE THEATRE.
"MAGIC" AT THE EVERYMAN.
MR. G. K. CHESTERTON'S Magic is a most attractive piece of work. In spite of a few faults—some technical, some fundamental and temperamental—it is a capital play, titillat- ing to the mind and exciting to the emotions from the first moment, when the credulous girl meets the disguised conjuror, to the last, when the resultant tangle is harmonized. The persons of the play are a duke, extremely amiable and un- practical, a conjuror, a nephew who disbelieves everything, a niece who believes everything, a doctor and a clergyman ; and the argument is that a too settled incredulity can be more A' a disease than the greatest credulity. It must be conceded that Mr. Chesterton makes his point most successfully. Magic is one of those rare plays which could very well be slightly extended. For instance, the incredulous character, the nephew from America, is gratuitously American and gratuit- ously incredulous from the moment he comes on the stage. He should surely have been introduced and discussed, his irritability accounted for by some fiction of lost train or lost luggage. No one who cares for acting should miss the spec- tacle of Mr. Brember Wills as the duke. We are used to Mr. Wills as a wild, vehement eccentric (in Heartbreak House or R.U.R., for example), but here he portrays a mild, ineffectual eccentric with a perfection of art that makes his every move- ment and word a joy. He has invented a whole collection of mannerisms for his kind old man. Some of the most admir- able moments of the play were when he put papers away in a cabinet, arranged cushions on a sofa, or sat on first one and then another of a row of chairs. His was one of the best individual performances that I have seen for a very long time. Mr. Harold Scott was admirable as the private secretary ; Mr. Milton Rosmer as the doctor struggled manfully through a wilderness of whiskers ; while Mr. Douglas Jefferies
was excellent as the clergyman. Mum.
Previous page
