GOSSIP FROM LONDON STAGELAND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1157, 4 May 1894, Page 26

GOSSIP FROM LONDON STAGELAND.

From Our Special Correspondent. London, March 14. Mr “ George Fleming,” whose new play is already in rehearsal at the Garrick, “Caste” having caught on but poorly after all, covers the identity of an American lady, Miss Julia Constance Fletcher. “George Fleming” first came to tho fore as the author of “A Nile Novel,” published in 1877. It ran through several editions, and is now included in Macmillan’s 2s series. “Mirage” (an even better book, some think) followed in 1878, and “Kismet” in 1880. Miss Fletcher’s other stories are “ Tho Head of Medusa ” and “Andromeda. Mr Hare, Mr Forbes Robertson, Miss Robins and Miss Rorke have good parts in the naw play.

Mr Buchanan’s luck, seems to have deserted him, as both “The Charlatan” and “ Dick Sheridan,” despite cordial receptions and good notices, have failed oven to achieve the 50 nights’ run which constitutes the nominal London success quotable in the provinces.

At the close of the run of Drury Lane “panto” on Saturday evening, the company assembled on the stage and presented “ our dear Guv’nor,” as Herbert Campbell called Augustus Druriolanus, with somo

300 ounces of silver plate. In return, the manager (less portly than before his illness) presented the donors and the public with his thanks. The Duke of Bedford, he said, had renewed his lease for seven years, and despite the lamented death of Henry Pettitt the usual Drury Lane Drama would appear about September. Next Christmas the panto, will be “ Aladdin,” which the manager hopes to make “ a dream of Far Cathay.”

The new formula in melodrama has still to come. Tho pen dropped by the late Henry Pettitt has been promptly snatched up by Mr Sutton Vane, who at the Adclphi on Saturday night unfolded a ponderous and complex drama of the good old style so familiar to the patrons of Gatti’s House. There is indeed nothing to distinguish “The Cotton King” from the more highly coloured and sensational plays that have followed one another on the Adelplii stage during the past ten or a dozen years. And the sedulous cultivation of the conventional will not come to an end yet awhile, for to judge from the thunderous applause which greeted every familiar turn of the old, old story on Saturday, the public lias lost none of their taste for highly spiced incident interwoven with mechanical “sensation.” Mr Vane has stuck to current melodrama, and will reap a rich reward. Had he strayed much from tlie beaten path, he probably would still be seeking for a manager to produce his play, the story of which is in reality the record of the villain’s misdeeds. Never, surely, has Virtue, in the person of John Osborne, of the Ashton Works, been more despitcfully used than by his trusted friend Richard Stockley. Into this latter personage Mr Vane has consecrated ninety-nine one hundredths of tlie vice of tho play. Ho begins his Satanic course promptly, for he reduced John Osborne from the position of owner to that of servant in the works by means of a falsified telegram to America regarding the sale of stock. Having achieved this, ho betrays the pride of the village, Elsie Kent, and contrives to foist tho onus of h;r shamo upon Osborne. Presently the hero is sent to America on business. He goes the more willingly since in New York ho hopes to discover his recent enemy. Stockley, of course, he does not suspect, but tho latter foists upon tho departing Osborne somo stolen notes, so t hat in his absence ho shall be accused of theft. And so that his friend shall not be able to come home and answer that charge, Stockley, whoso arm is terribly long, contrives to have Osborne shut up in a Lunatic Asylum in New York under a false name. Having thoroughly gratified his villainous instinct upon tho man, Stockley actually turns his attention to the man’s fiancee, Hetty Drayson. His suit, of course, is unavailing, for in spite of Osborne failing to write to her, Hetty remains true as steel to her absent lover. So Stockley, spurned, schemes for her death, from which he expects to reap some monetary advantage. He arranges that in her charitable rounds in the village she shall bo induced to visit a virulent case of typhoid fever. The plan miscarries through the faintheartedness of a subordinate, and Stockley resorts to another.

The third act opens with a scene of the interior of the cotton works. The calico printing machinery is in motion, and in the centre of the stage is a ponderous lift. In tho bottom of this structure Stockley shuts up Hetty Drayton, and rings the bell for the cage to descend and crush her to death. Slowly and in full sight of the house the loaded cage come 3 down, the victim making frantic but unavailing efforts to escape. At such juncture there is, of course, only one man who has tho right to save her. And of course John Osborne rushes in just in time to do it. The terrified and swooning heroine is dragged from the death trap just a couple of seconds before the ponderous cotton ladder lift comes with a thud to the floor, amid the vociferous plaudits of the audience. Never since Boucicault hit upon the device of tying a man to the rails of the Underground Railway to be crushed by a passing train or, rather, to be rescued from beneath its very wheels has such a mechanical sensation been put upon the stage. Even with strong-nerved men it is calculated to produce that queer sensation known as “raising the hair,” and with some women it is provocative of hysterics. An excellent scene of a more legitimate kind is that where Stoekly, denounced in the presence of the factory hands as Elsie’s real betrayer, is saved from lynching by Osborne. Of course, all Stockley's crimes are brought home to him, and it need scarcely bo said that Osborne and Hetty Drayson are made entirely happy before the curtain descends.

As John Osborne, your old friend Charles Warner is seen in a part suited admirably to his high-tension style. He alternately glows with beautiful magnanimity and thrills with virtuous resolve. Admirably detestable, ou the other hand, is the villainy of Mr Edward O’Neill, a newcomer to the Adelplii, but deeply versed in the Machiavellian methods of modern melodrama. With its background of Lancashire life, its contrasts of character, its love interests, and its mechanical effects, “ The Cotton King ” has all the attributes of a popular play, and should have a long run.