The Philadelphia Inquirer - Monday, June 3, 1895

BY AN EX-EDITOR.
The Veteran Finds a Text in the Recent Couldock Benefit.

Speaking of the play of "The Rivals" as it was given for the veteran Couldock's benefit on Friday, a New York critic for whose opinions I have great respect, said that such casts as this were incidents of the palmy days of the old Park, when a skillful actor was lucky if he could earn $2000 a year. The remark was drawn from the critic because of a jocular managerial offer of $100,000 to the ten players in the piece for a tour of twenty weeks. Considering that the late William J. Florence was reputed to receive $1000 a week for playing Sir Lucius O'Trigger with Mr. Jefferson, and not playing it very well at that, the offer was not so very extraordinary even for "dead earnest." But excepting the Bob Acres of Mr. Jefferson and the Mrs. Malaprop of Mrs. Drew, the critic believed that two or three casts of "The Rivals" could be made up of American actors on the contemporary stage which would equal in merit, perhaps even surpass, that of the Couldock benefit. With these exceptions I see no reason why the number might not be extended to thirty. Without Mr. Jefferson or Mrs. Drew ten casts equally worthy and capable can be made up from the contemporary stage. It not only could have been done, but it was done every season in the "palmy days" when the "Old Park" was a long shot from having the best company in the country. Going back to the palmy days of the Old Park is a long journey into the past. Suppose we name fifth years as the first milestone on our journey backward. The palmy days of the Old Park could not have been much later, for the theatre was burned in 1848. In 1845 there were at least three theatres in New York, the Bowery, the Chatham and the Olympic, and three in Philadelphia, the Chestnut, the Walnut and the Arch, with companies capable of casting "The Rivals" as well as or better than was possible at the "Old Park." The same thing is relatively as true or truer if we carry back the Old Park's palmy days three-quarters of a century. A hundred years ago there was no Park Theatre, and the Philadelphia and Boston companies could both give the New York company odds and beat it every time. I don't believe there ever was a time within a century when "The Rivals" could not have been better played by at least two or three companies than it was performed by the cast of stars in New York on Friday.

Well, you may ask, where am I going to get ten comedians to play "Bob Acres" as well as Mr. Jefferson plays the character? I don't think Mr. Jefferson's Bob Acres is any "great shakes" to begin with. You know what his relative, the late William Warren, of Boston, said of it—"Sheridan, thirty miles away." Giving them leave to make their Acres in their own way, as Mr. Jefferson made his, I would have no difficulty in naming his ten sucessors. There, for instance, is Nat. C. Goodwin, who played Sir Lucius in the cast of stars on Friday. To him Bob Acres would be spring lamb and mint sauce, while Sir Lucius O'Trigger was only mutton and capers. I can not see why Stuart Robson should not play Bob quite up to the Jefferson standard of excellence. Sol Smith Russell I am sure would invest the character with a quaintness and give to Bob's cowardice a simplicity and awkwardness that would commend his Acres as a recreation. If Mr. Daly revived the comedy James Lewis would give us a Bob as exquisite as any of his parts with which we are familiar. And Le Moyne's Acres would be a genuine English squire, unctuous both as braggart and coward. These make five. If I named the full number you would remind me of this or that favorite comedian that I had either overlooked or ignored. I could find Sir Anthonys by the dozen or the score. I might have some trouble with Mrs. Malaprop, but I could pick a Captain Absolute or a Lydia Languish off almost every bush and find a Sir Lucius O'Trigger wherever there is a brogue.

As a matter of course I read the "criticisms" of the Couldock performance with great interest. One young critic who dealt in analogies especially interested me. He was disposed to treat Mr. Sheridan and his play with all possible kindness. He took care to say that the piece had been "criticised before," which I presume is true. As the comedy was written before the advent of Mr. Pinero, "Mr." Oscar Wilde and Mr. Charles Hoyt, he says it would be unfair to judge it by modern standards just as it would be unfair to put Shakespeare or Moliere to the same test. I presume all this is true also. I didn't believe that Shakespeare or Moliere would like to be compared with Charles Hoyt, and I am sure Richard Brinsley Sheridan would resent being measured by the standard of "Mr." Oscar Wilde. But as "The Rivals" has been acted year in and year out ever since it was first performed, I cannot quite understand why we are told that "the play was written for audiences that are now food for worms," and I confess I am surprised to learn, if that is true, that "every point was taken and applauded by an audience of to-day that knows not the gods of the past." This critic evidently imagines that the audiences of to-day are as ignorant of the past as he is. But perhaps it is unfair to judge the critic by other than "modern standards."

"Ah, those were the palmy days," Mr. Couldock in his speech assumed some of the grandmothers of the twentieth century would say, speaking of the performance of "The Rivals," for the benefit of an old actor. "And what do you think," the good grandmother will add if she tells the whole story, "some of the papers sent their critics behind the scenes to watch the players come from their dressing rooms and wipe the perspiration from their faces." "Ah, those were the palmy days of criticism as well as of acting," she will say, "and the actors and actresses that were only in the audience got their names into the newspapers as well as those that were on the stage." THE EX-EDITOR.