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MAKING A GENTLEMAN
A BREEZY CRITICISM.
• Mr. 1 Bourchier recently produced" at
the Garalck Theatee, Lofidon, a new;
play iby Alfred Sufro, "Making a Gentleman."
"- 5 TJie criticism of "The
Times" on the play is worth producing.
Underijlng the play, It would seem,
is something like tbe idea very carefully
worked out hy M. Hervieu in "La
Course du Flambeau," the idea of the
inevitable sacrifice of every generation
to the next. Sam Carey is a retired
tradesman, plain, humble, simpleminded,
who has made a modest fortune
out of pickles (jaded playgoers
will (be thaniiful that it is not soap).
While Sam lives, neglected, in a
sha'Uby attic, his modest fortune is im.
modestly spent by his son and daugh-
Immodestly, but not callously
and viciously; They do not heartlessly
rob their father, like the children
of Fere Goroit; in mere thoughtlessness
they Epend the money which he
foolishly lavishes on ilioni. Archie,
who has 1>ecn to Harrow (where they
nicknamed him the Gherkin) and Oxford,
has -been called to the 'bar, 'but
would not, he says, know what to do
with a brief if he got one, and as a
matter of fact does nothing in a handsome
Alayfair flat. He Is a waster—
as M. Anatole France would say, aveci
allegresse—always in good spirits, a
perpetual fount of pleasant jokes, and
with a pretty taste in fancy waistcoats.
Rosie, temptingly dowered, lias married
the son of an impecunious peer,
runs up milliners' -bills, neglects her
child, and flirts with a Mr. Carleon,
who, tedious enough, is not so tedious
as her liuslband, a mere golfer. One
day Mr. Carleon kisses her. It is
only a butterfly kiss, and, as Rosie
says to her father, inopportunely pri'
sent, there Isn't a woman in the world
who doesn't get kissed now and again
by someone else than lier .husband.
Poor old-fashioned Sam Carey is deeply
shocked, and lectures his iiirorrigi
bly frivolous girl about the dulie's of
wives and mothers; but, of eoutse.
without effect. Indeed, the lecturer
is rather handicapped iby Hie fact that
he has come to tell his children that
he Is a ruiued man. He has foolishly
speculated, and (partly through the
fault of Rosie's noble father-in-law)
lost everything. -Rosie takes the news
lightly enough; she has, you sec, het
settled £1000 a year and a freeholo
house in Norfolk street. Kut what Is
to become of Archie? It is the struggle
In Archie, and over Archie, about his
future, tliat provides the dramatic conflict
of Ihe play.
Archie cannot make a living for
himself at home, since you cannot live
on small jokes and an eye for waistcoat
patterns.
Old Sam's proposal
is that he and Archie go to Canada,
there to set up once-more in the pickle
trade.
Hard work!
A
new
and
healthy environment!
It will ltnoek
all the nor,sense out of the bov and
make a man of him.
Archie, always
good-natured, iwpressiouable, the crea
ture of the moment, consents.
But
worldly little Rosie has other
plans
for liim.
He has lately made the
acquaintance of ao enormously rich
Baroness
von
Ritzen,
and,
Rosie
shrewdly suspects, would marry hei
for the asking.
Accordingly, she and
her father-in-law, Lord Parkhurst, pl>
him with arguments why he should go
straightway and propose to the Baron,
ess. The creature of another moment,
he is easily persuaded.
Now, the Bareness Is a lady with
a disgracetul past. That you have to
take for granted; it v.hat the soldlei
said, for the lady's present is irreproachable,
and, indeed, Is in ber be
liaviour the sweetest, best, most scrupulous
of women. Scrupulous she ia,
perhaps to the point of fantasy; for
though she loves Archie, and they arc
both of full age, she will not inarrj
him without his father's consent. Why
she insists on this odd stipulation Is
not clear; It was the author's task
here to make it more plausible than ho
has succeeded in making it; you are
left with the rather awkwaTd suspicion
that it Is invented just to keep
the play going. Then, again, Archie's
"etat d'ame" is not quite as clear as
it might be. He proposes marriage
to the Baroness because of her monej.
But In the very act of proposing lie
finds (a little suddenly) that he really
and sincerely does love her, and so hf
wishes the money were not there
There it Is, however; and though hi
protests, and you are Intended to be
lieve, that it is not just for tbe money
that he would marry the lady, the facl
remains that the money makes all
the difference. Well, at first, of course,
old Sam plays the Roman father, with
a touch of the elder Duval out of "La
Dame aux Camelias." Like the othe'
sturdy old Sam, when excuses were
made for a lady with a past, he would
say, "Sir, do not accustom your mind
to confound vlrlue and .vice; the wo
man's a , and there's an end on'L"
He knows only plain right and wrong,
cleanness, and foulness, and a son vi
his must not sell himself to a woiaav,
like that Archie and Rosie urge tilc.
worldly view. The Baroness has been
thoroughly whitewashed, and Is now
received by the Duchesses. Slrango
to say, nobody puts the one really
valid argument; that, whatever the
Raroness may have been, she is nye
a really nice, "white" Wi.man, through
and through, in lierse'f, and without
reference to any duchesses. H^ro, In
fact, :s another of the authors obscurities.
He takes pains tj make th>:
oariness entirely "s3-mpat'nu"'o": hn
mekfcs out, too, that Areh!e'e love for
licr is, at any rate I11 pa 1 -., genuine
enough. Pro tan-to, then, tbe old man
is made to appear perversely wrongheaded.
At the same time, you arc
invited to pity the old man as sajrt-
«ced, as tbe the martyr ot the o'<l
tar.iallly to the new V-oiIdllness, For
at last his consent is wrung on', of
h-m, and he departs for Canada leaving
his children to their barnnessns
and Carleons. With him goen an
adopted daughter, whose function it
has beep lp the play to show how a
stranger may have more understanding
and affection than those of your own
blood. Thus tlie old man ends the.
play by retiring beaten.
It is an ending rather than a solution.
If the old morality is worsted,
the new worldliness has not altogether
triumphed. For the daughter, Yes,
(and you ask yourself whether the old
morality Is quite consistent In running
away, instead of staling to guard ber
from the Carleong); but for the son,
No. He is marrying a woman who is
better than the old morality allows,
and he is not marrying her altogether
In the spirit of the new worldllqese.
Finally, then, you are left with the
unsatisfactory impression that the
author has "woWblod," has not clearly
stated, the questions at issue, has spoilt
the "sacrifice" imotif by missorting the
"sympathies." On the other hand, it
Is just possible that this improves:
was the author's deliberate aim.
may say that life Is like that we are
all purblind creatures, and act from
mixed motives; the new woiidlinesB
Is not so worldly as it seems, and the
old morality not so moral as it sup
poses. If so, the answer is that the
Playgoer ought hot to be left to conjecture
this Intention; the playwright
should have-made it plain.
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