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Greymouth Evening Star, 26 November 1927, Page 9

BACK TO DAYS OF BLOOD AND THUNDER

London Rocks Over Revival of 200-Year-Old

“Thriller.”

Tale of a Murdered Uncle Played by “Crummies and . Co.”

a time when hectic American importations CnfOKpO ' are th® rage on the London stage, it is refreshing to discover, stxWslfs shrinking from the garish electric signs of the Strand, little theatres devoted to native comedy in which the humour is English undeflled. Such a one is Nigel Playfair’s Lyric Theatre, hidden away in the back streets of Hammersmith, yet thronged nightly by the elite and intellectual of the Metropolis.

This delightful little theatre, dedicated, as letters upon the proscenium show, to Gay and other forbears of the modern playwright, is the home Of what might be called “resurrected” drama —revivals of centxfry-old plays

long forgotten to all out the-.antiquary. Thus has London glimpsed the dead ' past through revivals of eighteenth century works like “The Duenna,” “The Beau’s Stratagem,” -and “The Beggar’s Opera.” Now, to this illustrious list of curiosities, must be added the oncefamous drama. "The London’Merchant, or Ihe Tragedy of George Barnwell,”

written by a gifted hue quite passe English dramatist, George Lillo, and produced for the first time at Drury Lane Theatre in 1731. What is this play that thrilled London apprentices and wenches 200 years ago, that held the stage for a lull century or more, and which now, for a revival of 115 performances, has furnished the Hammersmith Lyric with a worthy attraction which several dramatic critics have been pleased to term “the iolliest entertainment in London?” ’ It is one of the good old stock dramas, top-heavy with turgid language, teeming with the feeblest platitudes and transparent in plot and appeal to sentiment. Played in serious vein it would to-day be laughed out of court, sneered upon and damned

with ridicule, but at the Hammersmith • Lyric they treat it with the saving 1 grace of humour, attack it from the standpoint of mild burlesque, and so prolong the palpable sham that the audience rocks with laughter at poor old Lillo’s heartrending lines. .Listen for a moment to the grandiose soliliquy that young George Barnwell, trying to emulate Mark Anthony, speaks aloud over the body of the

uncle he has murdered for his money:

“Expiring saint! Oh, murdered, martyred uncle Lift up your dying eyes and view your nephew in your murderer. Oh, do not look so tenderly upon me! Let, indignation lighten from your eyes and blast me ere you die! Murder the worst of crimes, and parricide the worst of murders, and this the "worst of parricides! Cain, who stands on record from the birth of time, and must to its last period, as accursed, slew a brother, favoured above him. Detected Nero, by another’s hand, dispatched a mother that he feared and hated. But I, with

my own hand, have murdered a brother, mother, father and a friend most loving and beloved. This exec«rible act of mine’s without a parallel! Oh, may it ever stand alone—the last of murders as it is the worst!” This pious oration ended, George Barnwell stalks off, sweet poetry falling from his confessional lips, his uncle’s blood upon his hands. And the news of the crime is conveyed to his employer, whom he has also robbed.

Thorowgood: This person informs me that your friend, at the instigation of an impious woman, is gone to rob and murder his venerable uncle. Trueman: O execrable deed! lam blasted with the horror of the thought. Do we hear of strong language on the stage decried in Dickens’s time? Not a bit of it. But hark! “What ho!. Without there! Who waits It is confirmation of the crime in

the wood. Barnwell, aghast at. his grisly deed, has fled for sanctuary to tho corruptible Millwood, that “deceitful, cruel and bloody woman,” who, with mercenary cunning, has wrapt her tentacles about the poor lad and spurred him on to the commission of the dreadful act.

"Behold!” he cries, kneeling at her feet, “these hands all crimsoned o’er with my dear uncle’s blood. Here’s a sight to make a statue start with horror, or turn a living man into a statue.” As indeed it is.

But Millwood, the treacherous cat, spurns her wretched victim and turns him over to the hangman, at which point the pitiful youth throws aside his sorrowful burden in order to point a useful moral to the rabble in the gallery. No doubt, in Dickens’s time, such appeals from the stage were judged ’to have a beneficial influence upon the criminally-minded elements in the audience, but to-day the following unctuous oration would meet with scant dignity:—

Be warned, ye youths, who see my sad

despair, Avoid lewd women, false as they arc

fair. By reason guided, honest joys pursue; The fair, to honour and to virtue, true Just to herself, will ne’er he false to you. By my example learn to shun my fate; (How wretched is the man who’s wise

too late!) Ere innocence and fame and life he lost, Here purchase wisdom, cheaply, at my cost.

And lest there be tjiose addressed to whom the speech of the Muse is as water on a duck’s back, the unhappy man interprets his verses in sober prose'as he stands upon the scatfold: “From our example may aU be taught to fly the first approach of vice,”—a truly noble sentiment which, it is sincerely hoped, fitly commended itself to those wayward young apprentices whose conduct, it would seem, stood in danger of backsliding. Did the young generation in those days, as it does to-day, enjoy being thought wicked, or was it simply resigned to continual correction and rebuke ? In a century when parental discipline was stricter than it is to-day youth was no doubt accustomed to having the path of virtue pointed out with no little force and decision. In the twentieth century Lillo’s dragooning methods would be no more tolerated by the young independents than the old-fashioned custom of reading the Scriptures in the family household. Youthful London simply rocks with laughter at his elaborate periods, his self-righteous commandments, and has no better opinion to offer upon the play than “jolly amusing, what?’’ Nigel Playfair has done milch to turn the tragedy into comedy by writing a prologue, in which we are introduced to a delightful collection of Dickens’s characters, straight from the pages of “Nicholas Nickelby.” It is these characters who play the various roles in “The London Merchant." Do you remember Vincent Crummies, that embodiment of the oldtime strolling player; Mrs. Crummies, whose grossness did not detract from the ingenue performances she gave: the Masters Crummies, full of boyish irresponsibility; Miss • Ninetta Crummies, the celebrated “infant phenomenon”; and finally Nicholas himself and his friend Smike? Imagine

all these characters drawn together and participating in a performance of “The London Merchant,” and you will have a good idea of the drama Mr. Playfair has been presenting with such outstanding success at the Hammersmith Lyric. It is of no use looking down the theatrical indices of the London newspapers for the performance of “The London Merchant." Mr. Playfair calls his entertainment, “When Crummies Played.” Some people have asked “When Crummies played what?” and search their musical knowledge for the answer. Only those who have seen the play or know their Dickens can supply that answer, which, of course, is “When Crummies played ‘The London Merchant’ ” P. AXFOItD.