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AT THE PLAY.

“JOHN FERGUSON.”

After the unsatisfying theatre-diet which has fallen to me of late I was doubly glad to get my teeth into Mr. St. JOHN ERVINE’S good meaty ration at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.  His theme is as old and new as Job. John Ferguson is a saintly Ulster farmer, apostle of the doctrine of non-resistance (rare type in those parts, I understand) and eager justifier of the ways of God to men. Ferguson’s beloved farm is mortgaged; foreclosure imminent.  Help is confidently expected from brother Andrew in America, but does not come.  Daughter Hannah, sent with a message to the brutal mortgagee, is outraged by him.  Prospective son-in-law James, man of great words but little heart, rushes into the night to kill the ravisher.  But it is silent son Andrew (destined for the ministry) who does the killing, because he knows James to be a craven.

John Ferguson urges confidently the will of God that James, whom he believes blood-guilty, should not avoid arrest, and refuses to hide him.  But when young Andrew insists on giving himself up to save James and his own peace the old man’s faith, weakened, falters; he protests in his anguish, but rallies to accept this last blow from the hand of God—­made none the easier to bear by the arrival, just a fatal fortnight late, of the money from his brother, a forgetful sort of man, who had mistaken the date of the mail.  The tragic irony of the whole is skilfully heightened by the fact that it is half-witted “Clutie,” with his penny whistle and his random words, who goads young Andrew to his vengeance.

A grim tale finely (perhaps just a little too diffusely) told and admirably presented.  Mr. ERVINE’S most effective stroke was, I think, the character of James Caesar, with his pathetic yet revolting self-condemnation, interpreted with a real mastery of art without artifice by Mr. J.M.  KERRIGAN, of the old band of “Irish Players.”  Miss MOYNA MACGILL (a name new to me) played her Hannah with an exquisite sincerity and restraint.  A particular moment when, from her hysterical laughter at the careful choice made by her father’s God of the moment for the arrival of the money, she breaks into a passionate “It’s not right!  It’s not just!” was very fine.  The whole character was skilfully built up.  The part by no means played itself.

Mr. HERBERT MARSHALL’S Andrew was also an excellent performance.  Was it quite right, however, that the morning after the murder he should appear so completely unruffled? (I admit I don’t know my Ulster intimately).  I rather think that Mr. MILES MALLESON’S well-studied “Clutie” might have been a little less coherent, with more fawning in his manner.  He seemed something too normal for his purpose in the piece.  The way in which the other characters staved off his piping was beyond all praise.  I should guess, from specimens submitted, that his repertory was not extensive.