Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 4

I am personally concerned, very much in favour of
my pronouncing an unbiassed opinion on the "new classical play"
("Historical," if you like, but not "classical," and there is not the
slightest chance of its becoming a "classic") written by G. STUART
OGILVIE, entitled Hypatia, and "founded on KINGSLEY'S celebrated
Novel," which "celebrated Novel" is, for me at least, not only
"celebrated," but "remarkable," as being one of the very few works of
fiction (excepting always the majority of KINGSLEY'S works)
completely baffling my powers of endurance.
[Illustration: The Tip for the Alexandr(i)a Park Meeting. "Heraclian
must win." Notice the Rara Nativa Oysteriana Shrub in the
background.]
[Illustration: Cyrillus Fernandez Gladstonius Episcopus.]
Mr. STUART OGILVIE'S Drama may be a clever adaptation of a story
difficult to adapt; but that his play is powerfully dramatic, even when it
arrives at what, as I conceive, was intended to be its strongest dramatic
situation in the Second Scene of the Third Act, no one but an Umbra
(to be "classical"), a sycophant, a "creature," or a contentious noodle,
could possibly assert. Yet, as a series of tableaux vivants, illustrating
scenes in the public and private life of Issachar the Jew,--and that Jew

Mr. BEERBOHM TREE, so artistically made up as to be absolutely
unrecognisable by those who know him best,--the action is decidedly
interesting up to the end of the Third Act. After that, all is tumult. The
gay and seductive Orestes, Prefect of Alexandria (carefully played by
Mr. LEWIS WALLER) is slain, anyhow, all higgledy-piggledy, by the
Jew, Issachar, whose seductive daughter Ruth (sweetly and gently
represented by Miss OLGA BRANDON) this gay LOTHARIO of a
Prefect has contrived, not, apparently, with any great difficulty, to lead
astray, or, to put it "classically," to seduce from the narrow path of such
virtue as is common alike to Pagan, Jew, and Christian. As for
handsome Hypatia herself, magnificent though Miss JULIA NEILSON
be as a classic model for a painter, she is nowhere, dramatically, in the
piece, when contrasted with the unhappy Jewish Family of two. It is the
story of Issachar, his daughter and Orestes, that absorbs the interest;
and, as to what becomes of Cyril and his Merry Monks, of Philammon
(which, when pronounced, sounds like a modern Cockney-rendering of
PHILIP HAMMOND, with the aspirate omitted and the final "d"
dropped), of old Theon (who never appears but he is immediately sent
away again, and therefore might be termed "The-on-and-off-'un"), and,
finally, of even that charming specimen of a Girton Girl-Lecturer on
Philosophy Hypatia herself, well--to adopt HOOD'S couplet about the
Poor in London,--
"Where they goes, or how they fares, Nobody knows and nobody
cares."
The entire interest is centred in Issachar, and had the author devised
some strong dramatic climax (such as occurs in that play of
SARDOU'S where SARAH B. stabs PAUL BERTON) with which to
finish the piece, when the Prefect should have been killed either by
Issachar or by Miriam (SARDOU would have made Issachar's
daughter the heroine--the SARA BERNHARDT of the piece) then, in
the penultimate Act, anything tragic, or otherwise, might picturesquely
and appropriately have happened to the classic Girton girl, Hypatia,
and Master Phil 'Ammon, the good young Monk so inclined to go
wrong, to the great contentment of the audience.

Mr. TREE makes a thoroughly oriental type of Issachar, and it is
within an ace of being a grand impersonation. What that ace exactly is,
it is somewhat difficult to say, but what is wanting is wanting in his
great scene with his daughter. If the dramatist had given him such
another final chance as I have already suggested, the character might
have been dramatically perfected in Mr. TREE'S hands. As it is, both
by author and actor it is left "to be finished in our next."
Mr. TERRY is good as the amatory Monk, and Miss JULIA NEILSON
is statuesquely graceful as Hypatia. If I say "she is making strides in
her profession," I must be taken to allude not to her vast improvement
histrionically, but to the long steps which she takes across the stage.
The costumes are admirable, especially that of Issachar, on whose
attire the Messrs. NATHAN as Israel-lights-and-leaders must be
considered high authorities.
[Illustration: From an Ancient Vase found in the Haymarket.]
Mr. ALMA TADEMA, R.A., is responsible for the designs of the
scenery by Messrs. JOHNSTONE, HANN, HALL, and HARKER.
[Great chance for 'ARRY 'ere! "Scenery by 'ANN--a lady artist of
course--then 'ALL and then 'ARKER, from designs by HALMA
TADEMA." "I s'pose HALMA'S a artistic shemale," 'ARRY would say:
"cos I know as there's another HALMA on the stage, leastways on the
Music 'All stage, and she's HALMA STANLEY."] Whatever the
designing ALMA may have done, I cannot say much for the
reproduction of his favourite game