THE FOOTLIGHTS OF LONDON

Campbell Lee

WELL, the stricken London stage is over its second summer! By keeping one hand in the persuasive paw of Charity and clutching the joyous rags of Royalty with the other, the poor dear managed to pull through. The Smelling Salts of Novelty, though faithfully applied, cannot be said to have done much good. Managers produced plays only to string them on the Rosary of short runs. Playwrights disputed the honor of the swiftest frost. Stephen Phillips insisted that "Armageddon" beat all runs for brevity; Chester Bailey Fernald held that his military drama was IT; while Galsworthy, Knoblauch, Hartley Manners and other eminent peterers-out clamored for mention in the dispatches. . . .

The trouble is not that the plays are poor, but that the public's-thrills-on-itsown are better. With H. G. Wells getting up aeroplane parties to swarm over to Essen like locusts and give a performance with colored bombs; with Carpentier falling out of a balloon into a china shop (china smashed, Carpentier safe!) with bicarbonate-of-soda cocktails every time you turn around, and a respirator handed to you with the card containing the name (and description) of the lady you are taking down every time you dine out . . . with all these gay free thrills about, where's the salt in any stage situation? Even the Grand Guignol Company which came over from Paris with its most mordant morbidities . . . vitriol-throwing amour eases; frightful kisses, ladies who look like Jugend covers . . . even the Grand Guignol was ignored by the Lord Chamberlain. In the dear, dead dull days, this district-visiting personage would have been on 'em like a load of munition. The music halls are crowded . . . places to talk about and smoke. But drama is gasping.

EXCEPTIONS, of course, to nail the truth. Ermine cast its priceless effulgence when occasion required. The Queen saw the five hundredth (or was it five thousandth?) performance of "Potash and Perlmutter" and smiled all through it just as though life held no such anthem as " God Save the King." The Queen of England in quite rosy raptures over " Potash and Perlmutter " must be considered a distinct triumph for Hester Street. Another gala brought George Fifth and " Henry Eighth" together at His Majesty's with a perfectly blinding stellar cast both on the stage and in the stalls. " Henry Eighth," though incapable of running like "Potash," is a particularly apt resurrection in times of vicissitudes. It contains a number of chastening truths about the hollowness of rank and riches, although Sir Herbert Tree's impersonation of Cardinal Wolsey suffering from R. E. Morse makes nobody feel self-conscious these days when we are all as loyal and disinterested as angels. But "Henry Eighth " has to be given at regular intervals in London if only to utilize Mr. Arthur Bourchier's extraordinary resemblance to the matrimonial Tudor. Mr. Bourchier looks enough like Holbein's "Henry Eighth" to make the Curator of the National Gallery nervous when he meets him in Trafalgar Square.

SPEAKING of Angels, one of them deserves a V. C. for having saved the dramatic day. This is the "Angel in the House," with Mr. H. B. Irving and Lady Tree, at the Savoy. It is a Palais Royal farce—only wittier than anything Tristan Bernard ever devised for that maison of mirth and as innocent as barley water. Two Englishmen wrote it, McDonald Hastings (you remember "The New Sin") and Eden Phillpotts (who has the prettiest garden ip Cornwall and writes savantly about shrubs). The Savoy Seraph is no relation to Coventry Patmore's "Angel in the House." He is Hyacinth Petavel, celibate, eugenist, reformer with a futurist taste in art, a defective circulation, an irresistible fascination for all women under ninety-five and two idees Jixees. One is to avoid matrimony and the other to avoid anything like a chill. Thanks to his barometric mania the holy state fetches him in the end. A practical joke leaves Hyacinth and Lady Sarel stranded on an island after a picnic. "Marooned," is the word, says Hyacinth solemnly. The dew of an August night begins to fall; Lady Sarel, to keep him from freezing to death, loans Hyacinth her flannel petticoat. (She began wearing flannel petticoats when her husband died, thinking all romance over; she hadn't met Hyacinth!) In a further effort to keep warm the two fall asleep. Thus they are found when the party comes back. Everybody, including the convulsed audience, regards a visit to the Vicar as suitable. As the Angel Hyacinth, who takes himself with transcendental seriousness, Mr. Irving furnishes enchanting comedy, while Lady Tree, as the proprietor of the petticoat, is simply swish, to use London's new word, launched by the Savoy farce. What is swish? Oh, everything that's delightful. You're swish, Fish is swish. VANITY FAIR longs to be swish. The "Angel in the House " will be here, if anything is, to greet the Americans on the joyful but nebulous day that sees them again in the Strand.

BOTH the Stage Society and Miss Ellen Terry's Pioneer Players having announced that they wouldn't serve any more caviare until after the-it only remained for a Sunday night Vale to be said with spirit. The Stage Society did this with a splendidly shivering, Icelandic problem play by Johann Sigurjonsson called " Eyvind of the Mountains." The action is middle-eighteenth century, but Sir Sydney Olivier who translated the play made the dialogue as up-to-date as a khaki coat. Eyvind is a handsome young outlaw with whom the better-born widow Halla runs away to the mountains. The plot pursues the lives of these two hunted beings to their end, blizzard-trapped, without food. The woman's passion has cooled as her lover became husband-like and careless about shaving. At the last she rushes out to perish alone in the storm, leaving Eyvind shouting her name in the mountain hut, which the snow is sealing like a sepulchre. A powerful play, with two unforgettable climaxes, some beautifully painted scenes of wild flowers and snow, and an imperative need to be discussed. Imagine, then, the sobs which swept the house when a depressed gentleman came before the curtain and said that as the Pall Mall Restaurant had not been able to get its license extended, there would be no supper and consequently no chance to tear play and playwright to pieces on the spot—which is nine-tenths of the fun of belonging to the naughty Stage Society! Happily, there are Night Clubs in this town. " Eyvind of the Mountains " is too much for the unvarnished boards. It needs music with scarlet splashes and streaks of sombre in it and oceans of Pilsner in the entr' actes. Wagner would have loved it.

The Theatrical Garden Party at Regent's Park, never more blithe and brilliant than this year, gathered in the guineas as if it were the only benefit on the Beach. Every actor and actress in London contributed their own particular brand of talent and there were brilliant skits by brilliant dramatists, specially written for the Garden Party's famous Theatre, Grand Giggles. These houp-la little plays which take three minutes to act and exceptional agility to write, were^ supplied this year by Edward Knoblauch, Haddon Chambers, H. A. Vachel, and Hartley Manners (Laurette Taylor acting in the Manners "Giggle" with Gerald Du Maurier). There was also a Theatre Royal, a Palais dc Danse, a Chalet Franfais, a Cafe-au-Rcndczvous-dcs-Braves-Bclgcs and a simply irresistible Bohemia. But the nicest thing at the Theatrical Garden was, as usual, the Entente Cordiale. While the stage stars twinkled, serenely eating strawberries and cream where it would bring the most trade ... the world of the stalls, in soft frocks and sunshades or high hats and frock coats or in khaki, sauntered among the flowers or over the bright turf, chatting with their favorites, scattering sovereigns . . . the old delightful dalliance in an al fresco Green Room.

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Charity begins at the theatre. London proves this every day. Where does it end? A rare and rapid life lead the slim princesses of the stage recruited for the Benefits. Faith, Hope and Charity Mats, and the greatest of these is Charity Mats.!