R530430B. Colombe’s Birthday.
The Atlas, 30 April 1853, pp. 283–284.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 384–385.
Haymarket.—Many of our readers will recollect that in the year 1844 Mr. Moxon published a series of writings by Robert Browning, under the general title of Bells and Pomegranates; one of which, No. 6, was a play in five acts, called Colombe’s Eve. On Monday night this drama was produced at the Haymarket Theatre to the general admirers of the higher order of dramatic writing, and made the medium of again introducing to the real lovers of histrionic genius the ever-welcome and too-long deferred presence of immeasurably the greatest actress of our time. But ere we proceed to record our impressions with regard to the play, and our perceptions anent the capabilities of the corps dramatique, we think it best, in order that our readers may fully enter into the spirit of our observations, to give them a brief analysis of the principle which actuated the author and regulates the characters. Mr. Browning’s motive in writing this masterly play has been to develop, through a tide of circumstances, how much more worthy of our commendation and love is a true heart and just mind, though lowly born, than an unworthy soul and intellect, howsoever it may be enveloped by high birth or power in position. His desire was a great one, and his aim nearly commensurate with its object. For the elimination of his thesis he has introduced six beings, marked with strong psychological distinctions. In Colombe we find a type of the high-minded, true-hearted, instinctive, natural woman—there is not a thought or line that will lead us to suppose she has what cynicism calls the weakness of her sex; which, by the way, ought rather oftener to be called the villany of ours. She requires no such apology as—
Still for all slips of her’s,
One of Eve’s family,
She has the discrimination to find a true man, and the courage to confide and cling to him; she feels “’tis not good for her to be alone,” and cho[o]ses her partner for the future with the unerring instinct resulting from a reasoning combination of faith, hope, and charity. Valence is typical of self-respect and self-sacrifice—a great, conscious, grand soul, bursting through the trammels “of low birth and iron fortune” by the rectitude of the principles which guide and influence him—he, like a well-directed mighty engine, has his oscillations, but he never swerves from the right path, and he gains the wished-for end, ’mid the hearty congratulations of all the worthy. Berthold is a type of the generous chevalresque ambitious soldier, with a better organization than he will give himself credit for. Having been defeated once “by a pair of rosy lips,” he, for the future, spurns the strategy of love, and in the armour of ambition woos the goddess War. Melchior is the true friend, the earnest peruser of the wealth of books, and the calm observer and truthful expounder of their philosophy, tested by experiments on living nature, a genial theorist with a warm practical heart. Guibert is a proof what a high-born nature will descend to without some strong just principles. He is made up of love of approbation and selfishness. We always doubt his good intentions which sometimes burst through; for he has “a young and sweating devil that commonly rebels.” He seems to us to be intended by the author as a Tadpole, which will after grow into an Iago toad. Gaucelme is a type of “the Times,” crafty, cunning, cowardly, and a “measureless liar,”—one of that class who, when he had formed a diabolic scheme, Clunet tells to his face—
You have not
Smiled so since your father died.
We will never answer for it he never made his mother smile. We have given this analysis of what we deem to be the characters in this drama. We do it in justice to Mr. Browning, Miss Faucit, and ourselves. We confess that as the play was rendered in the Haymarket, spite of Miss Faucit’s illuminating rays, we thought that it was better adapted to the closet than the stage. But now we have the play, and have carefully perused and studied it, we are forced to an altogether different conclusion. The fog of the actors blinded our judgment, for we unhesitatingly declare now, that for high object, and dramatic capability, it is one of the very finest plays written by a modern author. We admit there are defects in style, for the poet, in his abhorrence of verbosity, “leaps on the other,” and uses a curtness that often mars his meaning; moreover, it has also this great fault: it is impossible that every one could render his thought with the same conciseness and epigrammatic point; there is never a word too many, but frequently there are too few; he is never deficient in matter, but he is sometimes in manner. Moreover the style of the period is not rendered; it belongs rather to the iron times of a harsher feudal age. Notwithstanding these defects it is a glorious creation. Looking at the present state of prostitution which defiles dramatic criticism, it is just such a play that too many of the press would desire to taboo! and pooh pooh! It requires too earnest a thinking and pondering over, too great a study and artistic development from their “friends! the actors”—it presents too high a phase of requirements that should imbue the soul and impress the form of man, making us exclaim with Hamlet, “in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god,” for them to admire. No—for their high-sauced palates “’tis too heavy.” It wants the condiments, “the gouts of blood,” to tickle their delicate appetites. In this time of Corsican Brotherhood the greatest praise Mr. Browning and Miss Faucit could gain would be that most of the press ran the play down and the public would not go and see it or her. We should not wonder if it were so; no matter, Time hath many honours in his wallet for both.
It is not for us to add to the world-wide knowledge of the physical presence which constitute the form of Miss Faucit, except to say we admire her more than ever we did. What we loved in the young girl has received additional charm by her development into the maturer woman, for she now conjoins to the early refined Raffaelesque gentleness and delicacy, grandeur of action, dignity and grace such as you find in the female creations of Michael Angelo and Dante. At present what we have to do with is, her highest quality—mind. How did she render Browning’s Colombe? and we answer, finer than any living woman. Colombe is no longer a brain phantasy. It hath an actual presence, form, being, and soul. Her corporeal presence may die when Miss Faucit yields, but her soul will live for ever. Colombe is another flower in the wreath that adorns the intellectual brow of Helen Faucit. Behold the power this lady has over us; there was no acting about it; she made us feel as if we were actual partakers in a fact, and hushed our hearts, or made them leap, even as Valence’s ought to have done. She alone proved to us that Browning’s language was full of heart-stirring thought and musical rhythm; every word and action seemed begotten and born by the circumstances of the moment, whilst the verse flowed mellifluously bland from her soft voice, as if it were pulsations of tone, denoting the inward working of the then beating heart, now gentle as a brook, now bursting its bonds like a rushing torrent. We did not wonder at the grandeur she drew forth from the hero-heart of Valence; it seemed as if no man could act otherwise, but it made us shrink with loathing and disgust from her craven-hearted courtiers. Not a word that she uttered could afford to be lost, yet for all this, will it be believed that some Ja—— we beg the quadruped’s pardon—“Gent,” came into the next box (and for his information we sat in No. 4 dress circle), who kept opening and crumpling his noisy play-bill during the whole of the exquisite fourth act, as if he were trying whether it were a Bank of England note. Read we are sure he could not—not a thought had he of any one near him, let alone Colombe or Browning—we would have such fellows whipped. We hope our readers will pardon us for this digression, but let them go and see the play, and we are sure they will forgive our indignation. To resume: at the end she made us think Valence a fortunate man, the prince a fool, and most else dishonoured and degraded knaves. Surely, this is the highest prerogative of histrionic genius “to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image.” As this is the case, who shall tell us that the stage cannot be made the honoured medium to disseminate the broadest and highest principles of even-handed morality and justice? If any such there be, let them go and see this delineation of Helen Faucit’s, and then let them tell us whether they have not a greater love for the gentler sex and a loftier veneration for their intellectual capacity? Our soul [p. 284→] on the answer. ’Tis a shame and disgrace to the time, that the public do not, by their thronging the doors—men, women, and children—compel the managers, “God save the mark!” to let us see and hear her oftener.
The gentlemen who enacted this play did all they could to overturn the Latin grammatic rule—“the masculine gender is more worthy than the feminine.” They proved exactly the reverse, instead of the author’s meaning being rendered clearer by the broad effulgence of a general apprehension, Miss Faucit sailed through the azure of intellect, like the moon, alone! All else was unmitigated fog, wherein Mr. Howe was the only gentleman who occasionally showed a link; he sometimes seemed to have some idea of the character, but mostly he played the part as if he were a retired master blacksmith. Why, surely the language of the prince’s friend ought to have shown him there was something more in it than this. One of the principal faults of the men who now practise the dramatic art is, that they never study for unity of effect, but merely learn their own parts and the cues; the consequence is that we have constant negation of the context, and the whole forms a piece of disrupted mosaic. No one proved this more than Mr. Barry Sullivan. Guibert calls Valence “The pale, fiery man.” Where was Mr. Sullivan’s fire? This gentleman stuck his tongue through the words, and poetry and fire of Valence, as if he were sucking a lollypop. Not an idea had he of the author’s meaning or the character he was representing. Like the Cobra in the gardens, he seemed to have swallowed a blanket, and was suffering considerable inquietude from the operation. Warm he might have been, but “fiery ” he certainly was not; he appeared to us to be trying to look like Mephistopheles, and kept looming about the stage as if he had lost a thought and could not recover it; he drawled and fought shy throughout the play. Never had a man finer chance to distinguish himself, yet he threw it quite away. Whatsoever his capabilities may be in the beaten track of dramatic literature, he has clearly proved his incapacity to read poetry or pourtray an original part; he wants power, mentally and physically; he may be a clever level actor, but a great original he has not the slightest pretensions to. Mr. William Farren, for the elimination of the most difficult male-personation in the play, brought a well-formed pair of legs; but for the rest, he made it a sort of disappointed waiter: like Francis, all he ought to have had to say should have been “Anon, anon, Sir!” The other parts were “leather and prunella;” the actors seemed to think that the gentlemen who fill the chief officairs of a Court are mere lacqueys de place, and played them accordingly. Mr. Tilbury acted the Chamberlain like a discomfited butler. It is but justice to the management to state that with the exception of the “casting” all was done that could be; we never saw better costumes on any stage, and the mise en scéne was admirable. But had we Prospero’s wand, we would cast this glorious play thus:—Berthold, James Wallack; Melchior, Vandenhoff; Valence, Macready; Guibert, Charles Kemble; Gaucelme, Phelps; and for Colombe, from the whole heaven of dramatic female stars, bygone and present, no other than—would we could print her name in diamonds—Helen Faucit!
Reviewed:
Colombe’s Birthday (RB), performance, London, 25 April 1853.
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