THE CRIMSON PLAYGOER

For eighty-three years Bulwer Lytton's "Richelieu" has had a lease on the English stage. The melodrama will inevitably complete a full ninely-nine year lease and then, unworthily, gain a renewal. Its life has been long, not because of any particular merits of the play as a drama of character, beautiful verse, or deep significance, but because the part of the Cardinal affords excellent opportunities to an actor. For that reason alone it has survived on the stage, and escaped its deserved fate as a piece for the class-room illustrating the theatrical tastes of our grandfathers that helped, however inconsiderably, in telling the story of the English drama.

As played on Monday night by Robert Mantell and his company at the Boston Opera House the play gained little in production. The story of Richelieu's intrigues, the love affair of Adrian De Mauprat and Julie De Mortemar, and Baradas' conspiracy against the weakling Louis XIII is too well known to be repeated. But to that story, brimful of striking theatric effects which Macready aided Lytton in devising, little sense of the dramatic and cumulative was brought by Mr. Mantell and his company.

The part of the Cardinal was not clearly and strongly played even by Mr. Mantell himself. Richelieu in the play is an iron-willed man, a master of the subtleties of court intrigue, a commanding figure in age and genius. He is an old man, to be sure, but a supremely dominating and dignified prince of the church. The dignity and dominance which Mr. Mantell often created were dispelled by a straining for laughs and comic effects, obtained by broad and undignified comic by-play, almost as soon as they were gained. "That inherent majesty of soul, that simplicity of demeanour, and that overwhelming power" which the actor and phrase-loving William Winter once found in Mr. Mantell's Richelieu were grievously lacking on Monday night. In place of these praiseworthy qualities one found a lack of finesse, a lack of dignity, and a rough sketchiness of character delineation which were disconcerting. In addition Mr. Mantell displayed a pronounced fondness for an indefinite kind of starfish gesture that told the audience he had ten nimble fingers but gained little in adding to the significance of his lines. Mr. Mantell's voice is rich and pleasing, but too seldom did he let it out, and often were whole lines and speeches missed by people in the fifth row.

Miss Genevieve Hamper did her best with the flat-chested part of Julie, making it a little more than bearable but less than convincing. The rest of the cast was negligible. A one-man play is this, but it was never intended to be done by a supporting company that found verse difficult to say, and more difficult to make heard. Too often did the minor players leave the stage with a racking stage laugh that chilled the spectator, and gave him a sense that they were pleased to have done for the moment with their share in the production. The inane giggle that overcomes most actors whose parts call for an "exit laughing" is something that demands immediate attention in our theatre. Then, too, the entire company stole the Cardinal's fire-works in their mage of handkerchiefs. One would have thought that the entire court of Louis XIII was sorely afflicted with chronic catarrh if the abundance of lace handkerchiefs on and in hand Monday night was to be taken as a fair indication.

Mr. Mantell's scenery has long been a by-word for the medieval in stage design. The interiors for "Richelieu" were amazing feats of architecture, but the one exterior, in the garden of the Louvre, was far more individual. Eyes were suddenly drawn from a landscape of unnatural vegetable growths to the front drop. Two trees luxuriant with leaves and heavy branches, were suspended in mid air with a proud spirit of not needing trunks or roots.

As given by Mr. Mantell's company the audience had a chance to see "Richelieu" produced in a way that could not have differed radically from the first production at Covent Garden in 1839, save in the merits of the acting. Judging from appearances the scenery might have been a treasured heir-loom from the store-house of Macready. The incidental music that was played throughout was a complete hang-over from the first performance. Encouragement may be had, however, from the size--if not the warmth--of the audience which welcomed Mr. Mantell back to Boston.