The bare essentials of the story are that the
beloved _Mimsy_ of _Peter's_ happy childhood becomes the wife of a
distinctly unfaithful duke; while _Peter_ finds himself in prison for
killing his quite gratuitously wicked uncle, and for forty years reprieved
convict and deceived duchess meet in dreams till her death divides and his
again unites them.
It is a considerable tribute to both author and adapter (the late JOHN
RAPHAEL) that their work should, at the height of the barking season, hold
an audience silent and apparently enthralled, in spite of the handicap
that, in order to make the story in any degree intelligible, much time had
to be given to more or less tedious explanations.
I will not pretend that the motives of the characters were clear or that
(for me) the phantasy quite passed the test of being translated from the
medium of the written word into that of canvas, gauze and costumed players,
with those scufflings of dim figures in the semi-darkness and that furtive
and by no means noiseless zeal of scene-shifters; or, again, that I was
much attracted by a picture of the life after death, in which opera-going
(please _cf._ Mr. VALE OWEN) figured so prominently. Indeed I think that
the play would be better if it ended with the death of the dreamers and did
not attempt that hazardous last passage.
But certainly there were quite admirable tableaux and some very intelligent
individual playing--in contrast with the team-work of (particularly) the
First Act, which was ragged and amateurish.
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