e new theatre at Oxford was opened by the University
Dramatic Society. The play selected was Shakespeare's delightful comedy
of Twelfth Night, a play eminently suitable for performance by a club, as
it contains so many good acting parts. Shakespeare's tragedies may be
made for a single star, but his comedies are made for a galaxy of
constellations. In the first he deals with the pathos of the individual,
in the second he gives us a picture of life. The Oxford undergraduates,
then, are to be congratulated on the selection of the play, and the
result fully justified their choice. Mr. Bourchier as Festa the clown
was easy, graceful and joyous, as fanciful as his dress and as funny as
his bauble. The beautiful songs which Shakespeare has assigned to this
character were rendered by him as charmingly as they were dramatically.
To act singing is quite as great an art as to sing. Mr. Letchmere Stuart
was a delightful Sir Andrew, and gave much pleasure to the audience. One
may hate the villains of Shakespeare, but one cannot help loving his
fools. Mr. Macpherson was, perhaps, hardly equal to such an immortal
part as that of Sir Toby Belch, though there was much that was clever in
his performance. Mr. Lindsay threw new and unexpected light on the
character of Fabian, and Mr. Clark's Malvolio was a most remarkable piece
of acting. What a difficult part Malvolio is! Shakespeare undoubtedly
meant us to laugh all through at the pompous steward, and to join in the
practical joke upon him, and yet how impossible not to feel a good deal
of sympathy with him! Perhaps in this century we are too altruistic to
be really artistic. Hazlitt says somewhere that poetical justice is done
him in the uneasiness which Olivia suffers on account of her mistaken
attachment to Orsino, as her insensibility to the violence of the Duke's
passion is atoned for by the discovery of Viola's concealed love for him;
but it is difficult not to feel Malvolio's treatment is unnecessarily
harsh. Mr. Clark, however, gave a very clever rendering, full of subtle
touches. If I ventured on a bit of advice, which I feel most reluctant
to do, it would be to the effect that while one should always study the
method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The
manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is
absolutely universal. The first is personality, which no one should
copy; the second is perfection, which all shoul