be taken seriously--was he
very particular about the probability of some of his characters.
_Doris_, for instance, was required to be too many things at once. A
bluestocking and a _sansculotte_ (not a very usual combination), she was
also a woman of the very latest cry in frocks. Miss Nina Sevening looked
pretty and wore them well, but beyond this she gave us very little help.
_Rose_, too (charmingly played by Miss Marie Loehr), who disguised
herself as a dweller in Bethnal Green by the simple expedient of a
duster pinned over her shoulders--how could Mr. Sutro expect her dainty
skirt and smart white shoes to escape the eye of this "clever" female,
her rival?

All the same, he gave us much matter for mirth, though the Second Act,
which promised so well, was dragged out by interminable trivialities
over the preparations for tea. I wish that authors and actors would
understand how depressing it often is when people on the stage will
insist on keeping things bright and brisk with domestic details.

As for the wit of "the clever ones"--_Doris_ and her mother and her
aunt--I don't know how the first-nighters took it, but when I was there
a great deal of it (when audible) was over the heads of the audience.
They understood all right the humour of things when somebody (not a
clever one) said "Damn," but I wonder how many of them appreciated the
symbolic force of the term _epicier_, or grasped the purport of _Quem
deus vult perdere prius dementat_.

Mr. Sutro owed much to the excellence of his cast. Mr. Gerald du Maurier
was, of course, inimitable; but there were also Miss Florence Haydon,
Miss Mary Brough and Mr. Edmund Gwenn, all delightful in their own
specialised veins of humour--the plaintive, the rich, the uproarious.
But Mr. Holman Clark had not enough scope for his unique qualities.

I hear rumours of a revision, and hope that this means that I shall
receive an invitation to renew a most delightful evening. For my only
real criticism is that Mr. Sutro thought me more intelligent than I
actually am--an error that I always encourage.

* * * * *

"Dusk."

_Account Rendered_, a comedy of some promise, but produced with an
extraordinary inadequacy in the matter of what the programme called "the
decors," has been very quickly withdrawn from the Little Theatre. But
its curtain-raiser, _Dusk_, is to be retained for the revival of
_Magic_.

That is nearly all that I have to say about Mr.