Sims's New Play, "The Last Chance."

Evening Star, Issue 6914, 29 May 1885, Page 4

Sims's New Play, "The Last Chance."

The following is an account of an interview with Mr G. R. Sims apropos oi hisi-W The Last Chance' my idea was _to wri to a melodrama, for once in which the ,c-o should not be suspected of a cnme°l which he is innocent. 1 have tned to *eU o tfon one summer's day. I was shown over "cstion for the beginning of a diama. Wh> Should not some rich young fellow come ,nd marry the hallkeeper's daughtei U any rate I detemined to utilise Haddon ! all L some way or other-and he., en ■vliich is reproduced at the AdelpM is iShful in e P very . detail Mr fl* the painter of it, having made mow> that.one I vcursion for (hat purpose. Barton and his daughter Mary live in Rowsley, some two :!Sihalf miles from Haddpn, and the Pe.v rock Inn (which you see reproduced by Mr Telbin so 'artistically) «■ * nostclry, which every angler knows. £ hen I had got iv.y hero in London I wanted to il ow that even plu*k was sometimes not llZg enough fought agM fate, and I brought hi.U down to the dock gate*, M ..ong the unemployed. If my scenes at those ■mm portals help to arouw » more lively interest among the great In «w» to«bk •woblom of how the poor are to live, 1 snail icel wwuVl for many a sleepless night and many a long day flf depression. VfBMUXQ A MM , _ "I began to write plays when I was twelve years pld for amateur company performing in the Theatre Royal Back Nuisery. In factf I really dontk»o«r when my jen has been idle. I have always MJlfevated, sinoe the first happy day when 1 app«t£ in print, the art, or perhaps Jshould say the aft, of putting my short stories into me odrainatie form and writing in a short and incisive style pithy sentences much m ope would writ* the dialogue of a play. I must idmit, however, that my first love was bin-lesque-after Byron. But writing a play is the most exhausting and the most distressing of all forms of literary labor that I have tried. This is how I proceed. I begin to plan my story, building it up scene by scene. This I write out in ■» book and alter and alter until I have a clear story which I can tell aot by not to a friend, taking care to let the end of each act be an effective situation. I complete the piece act by act, writing in the dialogue as I proceed. Play writing I, both an art and a ' trick.' There are certain ' triyks (if the trade,' which, being unknown, lead the greatest artist into difficulties. An audience must be written for, not« at," and different audiences require different methods of treatment. A play which would be an enormous success at one house would he a failure at another, The great secret of success in dramatic work I believe to be the knowledge of what not to write, Hall the plays that fail, do so because among the uood stuff there is that which annoys an audience or distract, its Attention from the .nain points of the story. I endeavor as far as possible to remove every otanent of danger from a play when I have written it A line that is capable of a double meaniiuf has wrecked a play at a critical point more than once, and a dangerous sentiment has often turned the scale against the author it a moment when a safe sentunerrt would have turned it in his favor. Religion and •lolitieg are best left alone on the stage. In ordinary melodrama, where the moat exciting situations and the strongest passions of human nature are dealt with, the greatest .are is necessary to see that the tun line tfj'iioh separates the sublime from the ridiculous is not overstepped. Ihe plays of mine which have been the greatest successes have been the result of the greatest amount of labor and thought. The triter the material, and the more ordinary the situation,the more difficult It is to deal with them successfully. If the story bo not one of ordinary life it will fall in the first.necessity of an ordinary melodrama, which is to endow familiar scenes and actions and characters with well - sustained dramatic interest." . " Now, Mr Sims, I should like to ask you about some of your slumming experiences. Did you go as a philanthropist or as journalist ?" "As both, and to study character. About six years ago I used to lecture at East Knd political clubs on Sundays. On one of these occasions my subject happened to be ' The Poetical Side of Poverty/ The lecture was listened to with a good deal of attention, and a day or two afterwards I received three or four letters from members of the audience asking if I should like to see something of the practical side of poverty. I jumped at the chance. My cicerones were past masters in slumming, no amateurs they a school board officer and a nuisance inspector. I united in my person the assistant to both, and these two played Virgils to my Dante in the circles of the East End Inferno.' .-„,,, "Do you think your slum in Blurtons Rents is realistic enough ?"—'' My dear sir, you can have too vivid a realism upon the stage. The garret in which poor Daryll and his wife are living is not for one moment intended to be a typical slum, for though they cannot pay the rent, they have not yet drifted to the depth of misery which dulls the sensibilities sufficiently to make life in a typical slum endurable. Besides, no English audience would tolerate for a moment a faithful reproduction of an EagtenJ garret in all its filth and squalor. Of course people were saying that I had written a'slum drama.' No such thing. I should like to know who would stand five acts of ' slum.' No, you must have the comedy as well as the pathos, the beauty as well as the squalor; indeed, the lovely rustic landscapes only serve to bring out the East-end scenes into stronger relief." The great scene of the melodrama, laid in the West India Docks, is a triumph of realistic art, faithful in all its details. Many a time has Mr Sims watched the grey dawn breaking over that forest of masts looming up through the river mists, and looked on the scene which he lias at last placed on the stage. For years he lias studied the docks and the dock laborers, I and his vivid description of them in " How the Poor Live " is one of the most striking chapters in that terrible picture. Here in the scene as there described which is realised on the stage of the AdolpJii : " Watch this crowd—there must be over 2,000 present in the great outer circle. The gangers are getting into the rostrums—two tea ships have come in, and a large number of men will bo required. Hope is on many faces now ; the men who have been lying in hundreds sleeping oii the banks opposite—so usual a bed that the gv'uSS is worn away—leap to their feet. The crowd surges close together, and every eye is fixed hi the direction of the ganger, who, up in his pulpit, his big book with the Hat o{ the names of regular ?nen, or ' Royals,' open before him, surveys the scene and prepares for business. He calls out numo ,'lfter name, the lijen go up and take a pass, present it to the police at the gate, and file in to be told off to the different yessels. It is when the • Royals' are exhausted thilfc the real excitement begins. The men who <tta left are over a thousand strong they oome on the eliftljce. The ganger eyes them with a quick, searching glance, then points his finger to tliou} j ' You—and—ypu—and you—and you.'_ 'Hie onira. men go through the usual formality and pass in. There is still hope for hundreds of thom. The ganger keeps ou engaging men —but presently he stops. You can almost hear a sigh ran through the ragged crowd. There comes into somt> of t.bera'e, pinched feces a look of unutterable wco-the hope that Willed up in the heart has sunk D&uit again. There IB I?P chance now. All the men wanted are cnjjfcpd.. If we could follow the thoughts of some of tliS!J} ; wc •ttotiJ/1 see far away and perhaps whet'o ih some wrofcsßad room a wife and children sit (lowering and Bhiverifrg, waiting for the evening to come, when fathet Will bring the price of the day's worjt he tea* gofltf i# s CPk. ** must k e w ' tn a neavv heart tUafc &» »#£ Awards jnjd-day hears

the sound of her husband's footsteps on the creaking stairs. This advent means no joy to her. That footstep tells its sad, cruel tale in one single creak. He has not been takenon at the docks—another weary day of despair has to be sat through, anotliei niaht she and the little ones must gohungij to bed." Mr Bruce Smith has made his studies at the docks in company with his author. The result speaks for itself. We reproduce the. scenes here. To use Mr Sims'a words . ~' The dock laborer's story has a bright jr and better side. Inside the gates, on ir.j; es and miles of wharf, hundreds of (men, package and bale-laden, are hurrying to and. fro, stowing the produce of the world in shed after shed. Thousands of barrels of sugar are lying in one, and the air is perfectly sweet with it. The ground is treacly with it and one's boots are saturated with it as one walks through a thick slime of what looks like toffee gone wrong in a sweetstuft window on a hot summer day. Thousands of boxes of tea, just in from China, are in another shod, and their next door neighbora are myriads of bags of wheat. The steam cranes are going as far as the eye can see, whirling and dragging ami .swinging huge bale after bale greedily from the good ship's hold ; lighters laden to tliL top are being piled higher still; whole rcgi ments of j»je w tte u fc Wfl-h pVP&I&H B burthens are filing from wharf to warehouse i the iron wheels of the trolly, as it is pushed rapidly over the asphalted floor, makes a music of its own ; and the whole scene shut in with a Of shipping-argosies freighted with the we&ltn of fcjjp Indjpf), till) produce of many a land beyond the seas—ail this goes to make up a picture of industry and enterprise and wealth which gives just a little rjiirdonable pride to the Englishman who coiiiteiwpfate,* jfc for s}g first time."