[Van B.’s face falls; BOB listens gloomily to Miss T.’s rather perfunctory expressions of regret; PODBURY looks anxious and undecided; CULCHARD does his best to control an unseemly joy._

* * * * *

THE GOOD NEW “TIMES.”

Nobody, after visiting Terry’s Theatre, can apply to Mr. PINERO’s piece the hackneyed phrase,—­used apologetically by an unconscionable reader after detaining the leading journal for three-quarters of an hour,—­“Oh, there’s nothing in The Times,” for, in Mr. PINERO’s piece there is plenty of amusement, if not of absorbing interest.

[Illustration]

The story is that of a parvenu, whose sole object in life, to be recognised by “Society,” is thwarted by the marriage of his good-for-nothing son with the daughter of an Irish lodging-house keeper.  The struggles of Mr. and Mrs. Bompas to conceal this mesalliance, and the assistance given them in their difficulties by the Hon. Montague Trimble, constitute the motive of the play.  But the question that must occur to the critical mind is, “Did the author mean this piece for high comedy, or farcical comedy?” If the former, then Mr. TERRY is wrong in his conception of the part; if the latter, everybody else is wrong in their conception of their parts.

It seems to me as if, in the course of rehearsal, the peculiarities distinguishing the character of Percy Egerton Bompas, M.P., had gradually become assimilated with the individualities of the actor, Mr. EDWARD TERRY.  If Mr. PINERO so meant it, if he so wrote it for Mr. TERRY and for Mr. TERRY only, then there is nothing more to be said; Mr. PINERO’s ideal is realised.  But if the author did not intend Mr. TERRY’s impersonation, then he must be content to sacrifice the ideal to the real, shrug his shoulders, and pocket his profits.  Yet, as if making an appeal to the public to judge between the auctorial abstract and the representational concrete, Mr. PINERO not only publishes his playbook, but sells it in the theatre.  Visitors to TERRY’s, who buy the book, will judge the play by its stage interpretation that has had the advantage of the author’s personal supervision and direction.  The representation, therefore, is either more or less in accordance with his teaching, or flatly contradicts it.

[Illustration:  One of the Leaders in The Times.]

The publication of the book of a comedy in a theatre may be thankfully received as a present help to the audience, and an aid to memory afterwards, or it may be considered as a protest on the part of the author who says, “Here’s what I have written.  See how they act it:  whether it be farce or comedy, judge for yourselves.  You pay your money, and you take your choice.”  Suffice it, then, to record that, on the night of this deponent’s visit, the piece played from eight till past eleven, and that the audience from first to last was generally