ABSTRACT
It is extraordinary how scattered are the impressions to be got in the theatres of London—a good piece of acting here, a colour there, a witticism or two in another place, a tune in another. When you disentangle them you will find always that each moment of pleasure came by accident and existed entirely apart from the general intention. There is a comedy at the Little Theatre by a new and rather skilful writer, a Mr. Vansittart, who dons the cap and bells and jingles them for a couple of hours, during which and to their accompaniment, a comic drama ought to have started, reached its climax, and come to a close. But, though there was a company of very competent actors on the stage, nothing was heard but the accompaniment, so that I was constantly reminded of an undergraduate neighbour I once had who evolved an unvarying accompaniment of C, E and G in waltz time for every tune that happened to stick in his unmusical memory. Impossible when he played, to distinguish anything but his thudding accompaniment… It may be said that, as a critic, I have no business when witnessing a play to go back over the years to undergraduate memories. In the theatre, drama can hold my attention (and, I believe, everybody else’s) and I can think of nothing else when it is presented on the stage. When it is absent, my faculties are not engaged, and any wandering idea can creep into my head. (That this happens to other critics is shown by the comptes rendus in the newspapers.) That Mr. Vansittart’s cap and bells played the old C, E and G refrain is regrettable, but, having tested my power to respond to drama with Hamlet at Drury Lane, I refuse to believe that the fault was more mine than the author’s. I wish him well, and pass on to record other disappointments.
