  Everybody who has seen “The Critic” must have been filled with curiosity to read the Press notices on Mr. Puff’s tragedy “The Spanish Armada.” The following sequel to Sheridan’s comedy embodies some of these. THE OTHER CRITICS.Scene.—Dangle’s house. Mr. and Mrs. Dangle, Sneer and Sir Fretful Plagiary discovered discussing the first performance of Puff’s play, which has taken place a week previously. A table is littered with Press cuttings dealing with the event, supplied by the indispensable Romeike. Sir Fretful Plagiary. I give you my word, the duel scene was taken wholly from my comedy The Lovers Abandoned—pilfered, egad! Dangle. Bless my soul! You don’t say so? Sir Fretful Plagiary. And Tilburina’s speech about the Dangle. But I can’t believe my friend Puff can have borrowed deliberately from you, Sir Fretful. Sneer. No one could possibly believe that! Sir Fretful Plagiary. Eh? Mrs. Dangle. It must have been a coincidence. Sir Fretful Plagiary. Coincidence! Egad, Madam, ’twas sheer theft. And that use of the white handkerchief! Stolen bodily, on my conscience. Coincidence! Dangle. [Judicially.] It may be so—though he is my friend. Sir Fretful Plagiary. May be so! It is so! Zounds, Dangle, I take it very ill that you should have any doubt at all about the matter! Dangle. [Hedging.] The resemblances are certainly very marked—though he is my friend. But will you hear what the critics say about it? [Turning nervously to pile of Press cuttings.
E. J. Wheeler. “But they’re very severe on the play.” Sir Fretful Plagiary. Do they say anything about his indebtedness to me? Sneer. Not a word, I dare be sworn. Sir Fretful Plagiary. Then I don’t want to hear them. None of the rogues know their business. Dangle. But they’re very severe on the play. Sir Fretful Plagiary. Are they? There’s something in the fellows, after all. Pray read us some of the notices. Dangle. Shall I begin with The Times? ’Tis very satirical, and as full of quotations as a pudding is of plums. Sneer. I know the style—a vocabulary recruited from all the dead and living languages. ’Tis the very Babel of dramatic criticism. Begin, Dangle. Dangle. [Reading.] “The philosopher who found in thought the proof of existence, crystallised his theory in the phrase ‘Cogito ergo sum,’ ‘I think, therefore, I exist.’ In this he found the explanation of what Hugo called the nÉant gÉant. The theory of the author of The Spanish Armada, on the contrary, seems to be ‘Sum, ergo non cogitabo,’ ‘I exist, therefore I need not think’——” Sir Fretful Plagiary. Ha! Ha! Very good, i’ faith. Dangle. [Continuing.] “‘Lasciate ogni speranza’ the audience murmurs with Dante, as three mortal hours pass and Mr. Puff is still prosing. Nor has he any dramatic novelty to offer us. The scÈne À faire is on conventional lines. The boards are hoar with the neiges d’antan. There is the anagnorisis desiderated by Aristotle, and the unhappy ending required by the Elizabethans. The inevitable peripeteia——” Mrs. Dangle. You know, Mr. Dangle, I don’t understand a single word you’re reading. Sneer. Nor I, upon my soul. Sir Fretful Plagiary. It is certainly somewhat difficult. Dangle. Shall I omit a few sentences, and go on again, where the allusions are less obscure? [Reads half aloud to himself, knitting his brows in the effort to understand what it is all about.] “No trace of Heine’s Weltschmerz ... capo e espada ... Nietschze’s Uebermensch ... ne coram pueros ... Petrarch’s immortal Io t’amo ... le canif du jardinier et celui de mon pÈre——” Mrs. Dangle. Really, Mr. Dangle, if you can find nothing more intelligible to read than that farrago of jargon, I shall go away. Pray read us something in English, for a change. Dangle. [Much relieved, selecting another cutting.] Here’s the Daily Telegraph—a whole column. Sneer. Not much English there, I’ll warrant. Dangle. [Reading.] “Time was when the London playhouses had not been invaded by the coarse suggestiveness or the veiled indelicacy of the Norwegian stage, when Paterfamilias could still take his daughters to the theatre without a blush. Those days are past. The Master—as his followers call him—like a deadly upas tree, has spread his blighting influence over our stage. Morality, shocked at the fare that is nightly set before her, shuns the playhouse, and vice usurps the scene once occupied by the manly and the true——” Sneer. [Who has been beating time.] Hear! hear! Dangle. “In the good old days, when Macready——” Sir Fretful Plagiary. Zounds, Mr. Dangle, don’t you think we might leave Macready out of the question? I notice that when the Daily Telegraph mentions Macready the ref Dangle. Very well. [Continuing.] “It is impossible not to be astonished that a writer of Mr. Puff’s talents should break away from the noble traditions of Shakspeare to follow in the footsteps of the Scandinavian——” Mrs. Dangle. Surely, Mr. Dangle, we’ve had that before. Dangle. [Testily.] No; not in the same words. Mrs. Dangle. But the sense—— Dangle. Egad, why will you interrupt! You can’t expect a writer for the penny press to have something new to say in every sentence! How the plague is a dramatic critic who has nothing to say to fill a column, if he is never to be allowed to repeat himself? Sneer. How, indeed! Sir Fretful Plagiary. Ah, I remember when my play The Indulgent Husband was produced—— Sneer. [Yawning.] I think, Dangle, you might leave the Telegraph and try one of the weekly papers. What does The World say? Dangle. As you will. [Selecting a new cutting.] “In his new play The Spanish Armada Mr. Puff has set himself to deal with one of those problems of feminine psychology with which Ibsen, Hauptmann, and Sudermann, and all the newer school of continental dramatists have made us familiar. The problem is briefly this. When filial duty beckons a woman one way and passion another, which call should she obey? Should she set herself to ‘live her life,’ in the modern phrase, to realise her individuality and stand forth glad and free as Gregers Werle says? Or should she deny her ego, bow to the old conventions, accept the old Shibboleths and surrender her love? Like Nora, like Hedda, Tilburina is a personality at war with its environment....” Sir Fretful Plagiary. [Interrupting.] Pray, Mr. Dangle, did you not tell me the critics were all unfavourable to Mr. Puff’s play? Dangle. Nearly all of them. But if the other critics abuse a play, you will always find the critic of The World will praise it. ’Tis the nature of the man. Sir Fretful Plagiary. But how does he know what the other fellows will say? Dangle. Easily. You see, he writes only for a weekly paper, and always reads what the others have said first. Then he takes the opposite view. Sneer. No wonder he’s so often right! Dangle. [Continuing.] “In Whiskerandos we have the man of primary emotions only. Like Solnes, he climbs no steeples; like LÖvborg, he may now and then be seen with the vine leaves in his hair....” Mrs. Dangle. Stop, stop, Mr. Dangle! Surely there must be some mistake. I don’t remember that Whiskerandos had anything in his hair. He wore a helmet all the time! Dangle. [Irritably.] Metaphor, madam, metaphor! [Continuing.] “In Lord Burleigh we hear something of the epic silence which is so tremendous in Borkman....” Sir Fretful Plagiary. Egad, Mr. Dangle, doesn’t the fellow abuse the play at all? Dangle. [Looking through the article.] I don’t think he does. Sir Fretful Plagiary. Then I’ll hear no more of him. What possible pleasure can there be in hearing criticisms of other people’s plays if they are favourable? Sneer. None whatever! [Enter Servant. Servant. [Announcing.] Mr. Puff! Dangle. [Advancing to meet him wit Puff. Sir Fretful is most obliging. Sir Fretful Plagiary. The Telegraph was somewhat severe, though, eh, Mr. Puff? Puff. ’Tis very like. Dangle. You have not seen it? Let me read it to you. [Searches eagerly in pile of cuttings. Puff. [Indifferently.] I never look at unfavourable criticisms. Sneer. A wise precaution, truly! Puff. Very. It saves valuable time. For if a notice is unfavourable, I am always sure to have it read aloud to me by one d——d good-n Curtain. |
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