Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 4 of 4.—1892-1914

In musical comedy books(Chiefly frivol and froth)You do not spoil the brothBy employing a number of cooks.

With the opening of the new century, the "poetic drama" was revived with a certain measure of success by the production of Mr. Stephen Phillips's plays. Mr. Phillips had graduated as an actor, but Punch found him lacking in the theatrical sense, while acknowledging the pomp and pageantry of his verse. Herod, with Sir Herbert Tree in the title rôle, is condemned for its repulsive realism, and the lack of any character that engaged sympathy. The notice of Paolo and Francesca in 1902 is long, critical and by no means unfriendly, but the resultant impression is of "a negative achievement" in which the purple patches failed to redeem the lack of consistent characterization or of stage-craft. Mr. Henry Ainley is mentioned, but without any recognition of the qualities which have since earned for him distinction and popularity. Nero, by the same author, produced in 1906, is described as "out-heroding Herod." There were many fine lines but little dramatic action. Punch praises Miss Constance Collier as Poppaea, but cannot take the part seriously. "She looked the Roman lady, played the unfaithful wife, and died effectively as an invalid after a long and inexplicable illness. Perhaps she was poisoned. Nero knows; nobody else does except, perhaps, Mr. Stephen Phillips." Tree's make-up as Nero was most artistic, but he had not one really fine scene given him; Mrs. Tree was an admirable Agrippina; but Punch was not thrilled by the final conflagration, which he describes as a "weird, maniacal but dramatically unsatisfactory finish."

Barrie and Shaw

Meanwhile Sir James Barrie and Mr. Bernard Shaw were coming along with leaps and bounds, but neither of them owed much to Punch in the early years of the century. He had nothing but praise for H. B. Irving's acting in The Admirable Crichton, but it was a triumph for the actor rather than the playwright. The hero was "a perplexing creation," and the play "a queer mixture of comedy, extravaganza, farce and tragedy." Even less sympathetic was the first notice of Peter Pan, in 1905. As Punch had detected resemblances to The Overland Route and Foul Play in The Admirable Crichton, so he now found reminiscences of Peter Schlemihl and Snowdrop in the new play. For the rest, he could find little either to amuse or that could even be acknowledged as new or original in the extravaganza. He could not even tell whether the children present enjoyed it. Punch acknowledges that Barrie was the pet of the critics, and congratulates him on having his pieces perfectly acted by first-rate comedians. He frankly admits that he (Punch) was in the minority. A year later Peter Pan is recognized as a popular favourite in a much more sympathetic notice. Mr. Shaw was a much tougher morsel to digest, but here, too, one notes a progressive appreciation from the days when Punch pronounced Man and Superman to be "unpresentable," not on moral grounds, but because it was not a mirror of humanity in point either of character or action. Similar reserves are expressed in the notice of The Doctor's Dilemma in 1906. The general verdict is summed up in the epigram that "unfortunately, by steady abuse of it, Mr. Shaw has long ago forfeited his claim to be taken seriously." Yet the play contains "some very excellent phagocytes which enjoy a strong numerical advantage over its malevolent germs." So, again, Cæsar and Cleopatra, while affording in many ways a rare intellectual entertainment, was spoiled by the author's passion for being instructive; the piece fell between two stools, for it was neither frankly sacrilegious nor purely serious.

The ingenious burlesque account of an imaginary meeting of "The Decayed Drama and Submerged Stage Rescue Society" in 1903 is in the main hostile to the societies which confined their activities to the revival of old plays that failed to attract the general public. But Punch was by no means enamoured of all the manifestations of modernity, and the rumour in 1906 that Mr. Seymour Hicks was going to produce a musical comedy based on As You Like It prompted a diverting retort in Punch's: "As We Certainly Don't Like It, a Musical Comedy in Two Acts, by Hicks von Rubenstammer and William Shakespeare."

Punch adds the note: —

"Great care has been taken to follow the usual musical-comedy plan of making the Second Act even worse than the first."

His success may be judged by the extract that follows: —

ACT IIA wild place in Shepherd's BushEnter the melancholy James (footman to the banished Duke) with one or two Lords, like Bushmen.James [looking at his watch]:'Tis but an hour ago since it was nineAnd after one hour more 'twill be eleven;And thereby hangs a song.[Sings it.][Mr. Punch: Excuse me a moment, but is this Act very bad?Mr. Hicks von Rubenstammer: Very bad indeed.Mr. Punch: Personally I fear that I shall not be able to survive it.Mr. H. v. R.: Oh, two or three of us will re-write it after the first night, you know.Mr. Punch: Then by all means let us wait for that occasion.]

Irving had met with various vicissitudes of criticism at Punch's hands during his career. But latterly admiration prevailed, and, when the end came, real affection shines through the brief memorial quatrain printed in October, 1905: —

Ring down the curtain, for the play is done.Let the brief lights die out, and darkness fall.Yonder to that real life he has his call;And the loved face beholds the Eternal Sun.

Ellen Terry's Jubilee

Irving, as Punch noted in his review of Mr. Bram Stoker's Life, was if possible more loved by his company than by the idolizing public. The financial misfortunes which dogged the last years of his life were due more to bad luck than bad management, and did not impair his serenity. He died in harness, and there was more tragedy in the latter years of his contemporary and friend, the famous and prosperous comedian J. L. Toole, for they were clouded by bereavement as well as infirmity; and Punch's farewell to his friend in July, 1906, emphasizes the contrast: —

While Summer's laughter thrills the golden air,Come, gently lay within the lap of earthThis heart that loved to let us share its mirthBut bore alone the sorrow none might share.

(A scheme is on foot for presenting a National Tribute to Miss Ellen Terry on April 28, the fiftieth anniversary of her first appearance on the stage.)

Ellen Terry's Jubilee in the same year was honoured in a cartoon; but a new and formidable rival to the Muses of legitimate Comedy and Tragedy reared its menacing head in the following year. The visit of the Grand Guignol to London in 1907 inspired a prophetic fantasy on the new cult of "Shrieks and Shudders" which has been easily eclipsed by the realities of the Little Theatre. As I write these lines the leading serious weekly, among "Plays worth seeing," includes the "unabated horrors" of the London Grand Guignol. I have spoken elsewhere of the dancing mania. In 1909 the furore excited by Miss Maud Allan led to the following squib in which burlesque is mingled with caustic ridicule: —

HER RETURN

Being a wholly imaginative anticipation of the Proceedings at the Palace on the historic night.

… Before the dancing began an ode to the artiste from the emotional pen of Sir Ernest Cassel was read by Sir John Fisher, containing these memorable lines: —

Barefooted Bacchanal, would that I were KiplingTo celebrate thy marvellous arm-rippling!

… The new dances were four in number, and in them She personated in turn Pharaoh's Daughter in her famous fandango known tastefully as the Bull Rush; Jephthah's Daughter in her final macabre Hebrew fling, on hearing of her father's vow and her own fate; Uriah's wife in her pas de liberté after the battle; and Jezebel in her defiant tarantella before a waxen Elijah – all new and all marvellously restrained (not only in dress) and full of scriptural tact… At the end of the turn the applause lasted fourteen minutes, and She was led on eleven times. Free restoratives were then distributed in the theatre, ambulances removed those admirers who were too far gone to remain any longer, and the programme proceeded. Late at night She was drawn to her residence at Frognal in a carriage from which the horses had been removed, the Prime Minister, Mr. Walkley, Mr. Alfred Butt and a number of other talented gentlemen taking their places. Never was there such a triumph.

The "Follies"

Happily there were antidotes to the plague of Biblical Bacchanals; none better than that supplied for several seasons by the late Mr. Pélissier and his "Follies," to whom Punch expressed his gratitude in 1910. It was a "priceless" entertainment, with its "Potted Plays," admirable burlesques of the music-hall stage, opera, the Russian ballet, and on occasion, as in "Everybody's Benefit," really acute satire of the histrionic temperament. "The Follies" have had reincarnations and successors and imitators, but Punch's doggerel is not a bad picture of the troupe at its best, before the late Miss Gwennie Mars left them, and when Mr. Lewis Sydney, Mr. Dan Everard, Mr. Morris Harvey, and Miss Muriel George contributed nightly to the gaiety of the London public: —

When life seems drear and hollow,When Fortune wears a frown,I haste to the ApolloAnd plank my dollar down.Outside the tempest volliesAgainst uplifted brollies;I care not, for "the Follies"Are back in London town.Pélissier, prince of "Potters,"You earn our grateful thanks,You and your fellow plotters —Co-partners in your pranks —For slating smart inanity,Or Fashion's last insanity,Or histrionic vanity,Or madness à la Manx.From introspective thinkingIn every minor key,Good Sydney, grimly blinking,You set my spirit free.If laughing makes one fatter,Then listening to your patter,O very harebrained hatter,Has added pounds to me.Nor must my brief laudationsOmit the genial Dan,Or Harvey's imitationsFramed on a novel plan,Or Ben, that priceless superMoustachioed like a trooper,Who plays like Margaret CooperWere she a Superman.'Twould need the fire of UrielTo hymn your female starsFor Muriel's most MercurialAnd Gwennie's surnamed Mars.O Gwennie, you're a miracleOf mimicry satirical,Yet when your mood is lyricalThere's not a note that jars.

The "Follies" were benefactors; their satire was in the main most genial; and they did not cause their audiences "furiously to think." These aims accorded largely with Punch's own conception of the function of public entertainers; none the less in his later years he was by no means antagonistic to the serious drama. In 1907 Mr. Galsworthy's Strife is welcomed as a great play, greatly acted. Punch's dramatic critic has nothing but praise for it, though he did not think that the author bothered about a moral. It was his business to make other people uncomfortable, to make them think and "do something." "If Strife has a moral it is simply that the problem of Capital and Labour will have to be settled."

Chorus of Music-Hall Artists: "Glad you're one of us now, Sir Beerbohm."

Punch still intermittently bewailed the decline of the Harlequinade. His Lament for King Pantomime in 1910 was based on an article in the Daily Telegraph welcoming the beneficent revolution which had substituted Peter Pan for the old Christmas carnival of Clown and Pantaloon. At the same time Punch had himself become more than reconciled to the new children's idol and had compared Maeterlinck's Blue Bird unfavourably with the perennial Peter. The competition of the film play had not yet become acute, and the Music-Hall, which Punch had so frequently and even fiercely assailed in its earlier phases, was now a formidable and fashionable rival of the theatre. In 1908 Harry Lauder's salary, alleged to average £250 a week, is compared with that of the Lord Chancellor. There was no longer any talk of "indignity" in appearing on the boards of the variety stage, and Punch notices Sarah Bernhardt's appearance at the Coliseum, in 1910, as putting the crown on the new movement, and providing the Halls with their apotheosis, for she was "still the greatest star in the Thespian firmament." Her "turn" was in the second Act of L'Aiglon; the only other feature in the programme that called for notice was the performance of the "Balalaika Orchestra"; the rest of the "artists" were "very small minnows alongside of this great Tritoness." The "divine Sarah" could do no wrong, but, when Sir Herbert Tree appeared in the Halls, in 1911, Punch's cartoon was certainly not honorific. Nor is the note of "indignity" altogether lacking in the dialogue between the two knockabout comedians in Mr. Townsend's picture in 1912: —

First Music-Hall Artist (watching Mr. J. M. Barrie's "The Twelve Pound Look" from the wings): "I like this yer sketch; the patter's so good. 'Oo wrote it?"Second M. – H. A.: "Bloke called Barrie, I think."First M. – H. A.: "Arst for 'is address. 'E writes our next."

The "Balalaika Orchestra," by the way, was a minor sign of the Russian invasion already at its height. Miss Maud Allan had been unfavourably received in 1909 in Manchester, and about the same time the Chicago "Wheat King," Mr. Patten, had been mobbed on the Manchester Exchange, and Punch ingeniously "synthesised" the two events in the following stanza:

The types that make the market madNo doubt inspire the self-same loathingIn spots that spin, as those whose fadIs chucking up all kinds of clothing.

The March of Music

The Russian Ballet was a very different thing from the poses and wrigglings of barefooted Bacchantes, and Punch became lyrical in his eulogies of these "spring-heeled Jacks and Jills." The exquisite romance and fantasy of "The Spectre of the Rose," the "Carnival" and the "Sylphides" were a revelation to those who, like Carlyle, only saw in the old opera-ballet the conversion of the human frame into a pair of animated compasses.

The Russian Ballet furnished Punch in his almanack for 1913 with an excellent formula for caricatures of the idols and butts of the hour, but his admiration for the originals was sincere.

In the years immediately preceding the war the cinema demands an evergrowing if not altogether appreciative attention. Punch pays a left-handed compliment to the versatility of the film actor, but very properly satirizes the extraordinary representations of English life and dress in the foreign films produced for the English market. The invasion of Debrett by chorus girls, recorded in October 1913, is an old story, but if Punch is to be trusted had then reached dimensions unparalleled in the annals of aristocratic condescension.

MUSIC

Music has been called "the youngest of the arts" in view of the fact that, as we now understand it in the Western world, it dates roughly from the year 1600. But the "heavenly maid" had already ceased to be the Cinderella of the Muses, though still condemned in restaurants and places where they feed to the menial function of acting as an obbligato accompaniment to conversation, deglutition, and digestion. A pessimistic observer remarked about fifteen years ago that modern life bade fair to be dominated by music and machinery, and the correlation of the two factors has since been abundantly illustrated by the momentous development of the gramophone and the pianola, the cult of "sonority" and the dynamics of the orchestra. When to these influences are added the successive experiments in harmony and tonality and rhythm associated with the names of Strauss and Debussy, Scriabine and Stravinsky, Ravel and Schönberg, one cannot deny that the ferment in letters has been more than matched by the exuberant activities of musical modernists. In the period under review the "whole tone scale" was partially acclimatized and "rag-time" was domesticated, Wagner ceased to be regarded as an anarch of discord, and the "Music of the Future" became the music of the past. It was no longer a guarantee of enlightenment to worship Brahms or admire Beethoven. Of the three "B's" Bach alone has maintained his prestige, and to-day counts upon the allegiance of all schools. Otherwise, and in spite of the renown of Strauss, Germany ceased to exercise her old musical supremacy, and, even before the war, Russia, France and Italy had entered into a formidable competition with the "predominant partner" in the domain of opera. And though opera is an artificial blend of incompatibles and must always remain on a lower plane than abstract or absolute music – the most transcendental thing in the whole range of art – it claims priority of notice in this record for two sufficient reasons: its social prestige and the amount of space devoted to it by Punch.

Wagner's operas were now established in the Covent Garden repertory, and as I have already noticed, their new-found and fashionable popularity was largely due to the appeal of the great singers, notably Jean and Edouard de Reszke and Mlle. Ternina, who proved that Wagnerian melody was all the more effective when sung beautifully and not declaimed or barked as by so many German singers. Moreover when, as in the artists mentioned, this vocal lustre was combined with a splendid presence, dignity of bearing, and dramatic intelligence, the appeal was well-nigh irresistible. I insert the qualification advisedly on behalf of Punch who, in these years at any rate, was never reconciled to Wagner, and when he heard Jean de Reszke and his brother in the Meistersinger in 1897 could not refrain from jocular disparagement of the score.

Foreign Stars and Native Composers

Verdi's Falstaff had been produced in 1894, but Punch abstains from any criticism of that exhilarating work, merely pronouncing the performance a success, and a few years later further advertised his inability to recognize the supreme achievements of the later Verdi by declaring that Otello as an opera was "heavy." In opera he was in the main an inveterate laudator temporis acti and chiefly enjoyed himself when opportunities arose for indulging in alliterative quips such as "merry Mancinelli," "beaming Bevignani," or puns on the name of the performers, e.g. "Mlle. Bauermeister-singer." Puccini's operas —Manon, La Bohême and Madama Butterfly– found favour in his sight; they had sparkle, elegance and brio. But he was not impressed with La Tosca, holding that the "operaticizing" of successful plays was a mistake; in general his notices are void of musical criticism and only deal with the singing of Melba and Caruso and the admirable Destinn. Still Punch had lucid intervals of vision when he saw a good or great thing and praised it handsomely. The Santuzza of Calvé, in 1894, was "grand and magnificent" and her Carmen "marvellous" and unique. The epithets were fully deserved, but Punch acutely detected that this great artist and actress suffered from the excess of her qualities, and wittily described her Marguerite in Faust as "a Mädchen with a past." Madame Patti's reappearance in opera in 1895 after many years' absence was genially welcomed, none the less so for her choice of La Traviata for her rentrée, for Punch was faithful to his old operatic loves. In the next few years English opera and operatic composers claimed Punch's attention. The scheme of a National Opera House was revived in 1899 when Punch represented Music petitioning the L.C.C. for a site, but the sinews of war were not forthcoming. Sir Charles Stanford's Much Ado about Nothing, the libretto adapted from Shakespeare by Mr. Julian Sturgis, with Miss Marie Brema, Miss Suzanne Adams, Mr. David Bispham and M. Plançon in the cast, was pronounced "an undisputed success" in 1901. In 1902 there were two native novelties. In Mr. Herbert Bunning's Princesse Osra, founded on "Anthony Hope's" novel, Punch found little scope for positive praise: it was "musically disappointing save for accidental reminiscences." Nor was he much more enthusiastic over Miss Ethel Smyth's Der Wald, with its lurid plot "of the penny plain, twopence coloured type" and "interminable duets." Over one stage direction, "Peasants turn pale," Punch waxed ribald, and he concludes his notice with the ambiguous sentence: "Miss Smyth was acclaimed vociferously, the Duke of Connaught and the occupants of the Royal box testifying their great pleasure at what may come to be, after judicious elimination, a satisfactory success." The first of the Salomes who de-decorated the lyric and variety stages was not Strauss's but Massenet's version, produced in the summer of 1903. Mme. Calvé was in the cast, but the opera provided no scope for her genius, and Punch damned it with faint praise as not likely to be retained in the repertory, a very safe prediction. In the summary of the season Punch puts Richter at the head of the successes, a well-merited recognition of his direction of the Wagner performances; the list of "stars" includes the "two Vans" – Van Rooy, the Dutch baritone, and Van Dyck, the Dutch tenor – Destinn, Calvé and Melba, Caruso and Plançon. In the winter the San Carlo troupe from Naples visited London, with Sammarco and Caruso – or Robinson Caruso, as Punch liked to call him – as the chief male singers, but no new operas were produced. André Chénier in 1907 is described as of the Tosca or lurid type. A new hand is observable in the notice which acknowledges an unexpected dignity and refinement in Caruso's always brilliant singing and pronounces Destinn "adorable." Wagner's star was still in the ascendant in 1908, and Richter's splendid conducting of the Tetralogy is commemorated in the cartoon of Hans the Ring-master; while the "record operatic duel" between Melba and Tetrazzini is similarly honoured a little later. Never before, unless I am much mistaken, had two cartoons with a musical motive appeared in the same year. In 1910 Strauss was the grand and conspicuous portent of the operatic world, for Elektra, was produced in the spring and Salome in the winter. The former was hailed by Punch as a supreme manifestation of the Maladie de Siècle. His verses are quoted not for their literary merit so much as because they are a fairly compendious record of the fashions and foibles of "England de luxe" at the time: —

"Elektra" and "Salome"

O sons of the new generationAthirst for inordinate thrills;O daughters, whose love of sensationIs shown in your frocks and your frills —Come, faithfully answer my queriesIf you would completely assuageThe passionate craving that weariesBoth sinner and sage.Has Ibsen no power to excite you?Can't Maeterlinck make you applaud?Do dancers no longer delight you,Who wriggle about à la Maud?Are you tired of the profile of Ainley?The tender falsetto of Tree?Do you envy each bonnet insanelyThat harbours a bee?Is the Metchnikoff treatment a failure?Do you weep when you miss your short putts?Have you ceased with enjoyment to hail yourDiurnal allowance of nuts?Are you bored by the leaders of Spender?Or cloyed by the pathos of Caine?Do you find that "The Follies" engenderA feeling of gêne?Are you sick of Sicilian grimaces?Unattracted by Chantecler hats?Are you weary of Marathon racesAnd careless in choosing your spats?Are you jaded with aeroplaningAnd sated with social reform?Apathetic alike when it's rainingAnd when it is warm?Do you shy at the strains that are sober?Does Wagner no longer inflame?Do you find that the music of AuberAnd Elgar is equally tame?Do you read without blushing or winkingThe novels of Elinor Glyn?Do you constantly hanker, when rinking,For draughts of sloe gin?If I am correct in diviningThe tortures you daily endure,Don't waste any time in repining,But try this infallible cure:With the sharpest of musical plectraGo pluck at your soul till it's raw;In a word, go and witness Elektra—Give up the jig-saw.

Salome, so far as the book was concerned, was a tertiary deposit. Heine, in a few masterly stanzas in his fantastic narrative poem Atta Troll, tells the old legend of the unholy love of the daughter of Herodias for John the Baptist. Therein may be found the essence of Wilde's play, adapted to form the libretto of the opera. Punch, who attended the dress rehearsal, gives an interesting account of his experiences, but shirks the task of criticizing the opera: for that, as he observes, "no vocabulary could be too large or peculiar." But he mentions one orchestral interlude, in which "there was one sound, painfully iterated, like the chirrup of a sick hen, which appeared to come from some part of the violin that is usually left alone." At the close of June, 1914, Strauss's Légende de Joseph was produced at Covent Garden by Sir Thomas Beecham with the Russian Ballet. Punch abstained from detailed musical criticism, but condemned the "vulgar animalism" of the piece which he regarded as "a false move in every way," and his view cannot be laid down to prudery or Philistinism, since it was shared by many of the most devoted admirers of Strauss. Nor can he be charged with a wholesale depreciation of German music in view of the tribute to Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, which appeared in his pages a few months earlier: —