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“Haste to the Wedding.”
The Speaker, Aug. 6, 1892, p. 168
It is well to confess one’s own faults and so anticipate the candour of good-natured friends. I have always been prone to inopportune laughter. At a very tender age what struck me as the ludicrous jingle of the names Huz and Buz caused an explosion of laughter at morning prayers, and a part of my frame to be for days more tender than my age. Since then I have even laughed at the New Humour. But my worst indiscretion of this kind, it seems, was on the first night of Haste to the Wedding. Though I was amused by this piece, the pit and gallery gave unmistakable tokens that they were not, and next morning I read in a newspaper that their disapproval was provoked by the unseemly laughter of some of the occupants of the stalls. Then I knew that once more my old failing had got the better of me. I gathered that this musical version by Messrs. W. S. Gilbert and George Grossmith of Labiche’s Chapeau de Paille d’Italie ought to have been received, like the toast to defunct heroes, in solemn silence. Henceforward I promise to amend my ways. I will bear in mind Stendhal’s advice to his sister Pauline, “Interroge-toi quand tu ris”—or, rather, I will keep an eye on the pit, and when I see a row of long faces there, I will take care to do my laughing, like the gentleman in Dickens, inwardly.
On the other hand, there is another French maxim, not Stendhal’s, which says, “Il ne faut pas chicaner son plaisir,” and, remembering that, I think I will withdraw my apology for having been amused by Haste to the Wedding. I readily admit all the objections that have been urged against the piece. It is too long by an Act. Some of the players do their best to conceal the humour of their parts. Mr. Grossmith’s music might be better. But what of that? If there is not more honest fantastic fun left, when all deductions have been made, than in any round dozen of modern farces you like to name, I will eat my hat—as Mr. Woodpecker Tapping’s horse ate Mrs. Leonora Bunthunder’s. Much of this fun is, of course, right Labiche; and the man who cannot enjoy Labiche ought to see his doctor forthwith, and take a prolonged holiday. But a good deal of the fun is also right Gilbert; and there are, I know, many excellent citizens and ratepayers, solvent people, who sit at good men’s feasts and crowd the knifeboards of the omnibuses, yet have always been impervious to Gilbertian humour. They think it childish, and, in a sense, they are quite right. Here, for instance, is the opening of the second Act of Haste to the Wedding:—
DUKE OF TURNIPTOPSHIRE: Admirable! Magnificent! What gorgeous decorations! What refined taste! What have we here? (Looks through curtains.) A most luxurious cold collation! Seven-and-sixpence a head, if it cost a penny! I wonder if (looking around him) there’s no one coming—I wonder if I might venture to take just one tartlet! I will. (Takes a tartlet from table and eats it.)
MARCHIONESS (enters): Well, Duke.
DUKE: Marchioness (embarrassed, with his mouth full). I—I—delighted to see you.
MARCH. (more in sorrow than in anger): Ah, Duke, Duke—you’ve been picking the luncheon again! Now that’s too bad!
DUKE: I’m sorry—very, very sorry. Forgive me. It was thoughtless—criminal, if you will—but I was ever a wayward child, accustomed to have his every whim gratified: and now, in middle age, I find it difficult to shake off the shackles that custom and education have riveted on me. (In tears.)
MARCH. (in tears): You were my late husband’s early friend! Etc. etc.
Well, that is the sort of thing which many worthy people have no difficulty in dismissing as childish. But, rightly or wrongly, I declare I find this childish fooling more laughable than Petruchio’s whip-cracking, or Géronte in Scapin’s sack, or the “merry” war of Beatrice and Benedick, or Aristophanes’ sausage seller, or fifty other instances of what these same worthy people still profess to reverence as “classic” humour. One thing Mr. Gilbert’s jokes certainly require before they can be relished by the audience—they must be relished by the actors. They demand subtlety, an imperturbable countenance, a delicate ironic touch; anything like horseplay or exaggerated emphasis is fatal to them. Hence, in the present cast at the Criterion, actors like Mr. Frank Wyatt, Mr. Sidney Valentine, and Mr. D. S. James (a new comedian, I think, and a valuable), get on admirably, while actors like Mr. Lionel Brough and Mr. W. Blakeley come to utter grief. But though one or two of the performers may misinterpret the fun of the piece, they cannot vulgarise it. There is an indelible mark of good-breeding on this, as on all Mr. Gilbert’s work, which I trust it is permissible to approve without being reproached for snobbery.
Page modified 27 December 2020