THE THEATRE.
WILL SHAKESPEARE " AT THE SHAFTESBURY THEATRE. BY CLEMENCE DANE.
I THINK that Miss Clemence Dane's play, Will Shakespeare, is, without exception, the worst play that I have ever seen which was written by what Mr. Bernard Shaw calls " a good author." The only way in which I feel it is possible to account for such a piece is by supposing that it must be an early work of the author of A Bill of Divorcement and The Regiment of Women.
In this play Miss Clemence Dane seems to commit every fault which it is possible to commit, not only in a play, but in any form of literary production. The psychology is crude and obvious ; the machinery of the play grates ; the situations and curtains are forced and melodramatic ; verbally the play is immensely pretentious, and, if we look into the texture of the dialogue, we shall find mixed metaphors and anachronisms.
The play opens with a scene between Shakespeare as a young man and Anne Hathaway of a conventionality which, when we consider the character-drawing of Sydney Fairfield in A Bill of Divorcement, Is simply unbelievable. Anne is tho conven- t ional, primeval woman of the comic papers, interrupting her husband when he is at work, jealous and suspicious of his friends, and making a scene when he dares to ask an actor in to supper. Shakespeare is the conventional poet—you know the sort of jokes about poets and spring cleaning that are sure to be our lot again next March and April ? But Miss Dane spares us nothing ; all Shakespeare's characters come and mob him, and his plays have, pre-natally so to say, only too clearly been produced by someone who has adopted all the bad elements of
a bad tradition. We are no more spared the " " of melodrama than we are the verbiage of Wardour Street ; it would be " a far, far better thing " to go to the Lyceum and have done with it—at least The Only Way does not pretend to be high art. Please do not think this a savage attack, gentle reader, for it is only my great respect for Miss Clemence Dane's talent uhich leads me to this protest. There are probably a dozen worse plays being acted in England at the moment, but hardly such a fall since Lucifer's ! I hope that a short run. will hush up
Miss Dane's regrettable indiscretion. TARN.
Previous page
