_: _Mr. Herbert Beerbohm Tree_

_Managers_: _Mr. Lewis Waller and Mr. H. H. Morell_

_January_ 3_rd_, 1895

THE EARL OF CAVERSHAM _Mr. Alfred Bishop_.
VISCOUNT GORING _Mr. Charles H. Hawtrey_.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _Mr. Lewis Waller_.
VICOMTE DE NANJAC _Mr. Cosmo Stuart_.
MR. MONTFORD _Mr. Harry Stanford_.
PHIPPS _Mr. C. H. Brookfield_.
MASON _Mr. H. Deane_.
JAMES _Mr. Charles Meyrick_.
HAROLD _Mr. Goodhart_.
LADY CHILTERN _Miss Julia Neilson_.
LADY MARKBY _Miss Fanny Brough_.
COUNTESS OF BASILDON _Miss Vane Featherston_.
MRS. MARCHMONT _Miss Helen Forsyth_.
MISS MABEL CHILTERN _Miss Maud Millet_.
MRS. CHEVELEY _Miss Florence West_.

FIRST ACT

SCENE

_The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern's house in Grosvenor Square_.

[_The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests_. _At the top of
the staircase stands_ LADY CHILTERN, _a woman of grave Greek beauty_,
_about twenty-seven years of age_. _She receives the guests as they come
up_. _Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax
lights_, _which illumine a large eighteenth-century French
tapestry--representing the Triumph of Love_, _from a design by
Boucher--that is stretched on the staircase wall_. _On the right is the
entrance to the music-room_. _The sound of a string quartette is faintly
heard_. _The entrance on the left leads to other reception-rooms_. MRS.
MARCHMONT _and_ LADY BASILDON, _two very pretty women_, _are seated
together on a Louis Seize sofa_. _They are types of exquisite
fragility_. _Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm_.
_Watteau would have loved to paint them_.]

MRS. MARCHMONT. Going on to the Hartlocks' to-night, Margaret?

LADY BASILDON. I suppose so. Are you?

MRS. MARCHMONT. Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don't they?

LADY BASILDON. Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I
go anywhere.

MRS. MARCHMONT. I come here to be educated.

LADY BASILDON. Ah! I hate being educated!

MRS. MARCHMONT. So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the
commercial classes, doesn't it? But dear Gertrude Chiltern is always
telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So I come
here to try to find one