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But the contemporary English-speaking stage furnishes examples just as striking of the influence of the actor on the dramatist. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's greatest heroine, Paula Tanqueray, wore from her inception the physical aspect of Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Many of the most effective dramas of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones have been built around the personality of Sir Charles Wyndham.
Hamlet's wit is sharpened by the garrulous obtuseness of Polonius; the sad world-wisdom of Paula Tanqueray is accentuated by the innocence of Ellean. Similarly, to return to the novel for examples, we need only instance the contrast in mind between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. The expedient of antithesis is also employed effectively in the balance of scene against scene.
Tanqueray fulfils both of these conditions and is dramatic literature, while the poetic plays of Mr. Stephen Phillips stand upon a lower plane, both as drama and as literature, even though they are written in the most interesting blank verse that has been developed since Tennyson. Shore Acres, which was written in New England dialect, was, I think, dramatic literature. Mr.
And the old conventions have a long run yet before them. They cling even to the skirts of "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray." Indeed, the new school can scarcely be said to have appeared. The literary quality of our plays has improved, thanks to Jones and Pinero, and not forgetting Grundy. And that is all. The old school is as vigorous as ever.
" Shall join them in Paris dinner last Friday did you see The Second Mrs. Tanqueray our horses are always ill " It sounded like the rustle of skirts, the stretching of kid. There was dulness in the atmosphere. Yet if it was dull, Sommers realized that it was his own fault a conclusion he usually took away with him from the feasts of the rich which he attended.
Tanqueray, and that to introduce her in the flesh would be merely to lead the interest of the audience into a blind alley, and to break the back of his action. Again, in His House in Order it may seem that the intrigue between Maurewarde and the immaculate Annabel, with its tragic conclusion, would have made a stirring introductory act.
But I do suggest that the result would scarcely have been worth the trouble, and that it is hyper-criticism which objects to an exposition so natural and probable as that of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, simply on the ground that certain characters are introduced for the purpose of conveying certain information.
Considering literary merit as something applied on the outside, too obvious to be mistaken, the critic of this type disdains to give to certain of the plays of Mr. Pinero the discussion they deserve. In the 'Benefit of the Doubt, in the 'Second Mrs. Tanqueray, in 'Iris, Mr.
I doubt if five per cent of the public know who wrote 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 'In Mizzoura, or 'Richelieu, but they know their stage favourites.
A great many end at a comma, a semi-colon is noteworthy, a colon superb, and very often one has a mere mark of interrogation at the last fall of the curtain. Of course a full stop sometimes is achieved, for instance in the case of The Second Mrs Tanqueray; but Iris ends with something very much like a comma, and The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith can scarcely boast of more than a colon.
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