R530430F. Colombe’s Birthday.
John Bull, 30 April 1853, p. 285.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 387.
A five-act play, written and published many years ago, but never before acted, has been produced at the Haymarket. It is Mr. Browning’s comedy, Colombe’s Birthday, which has many admirers as a dramatic poem of much beauty. But it has not the requisites of an acting play, and the author and his friends have been ill advised in bringing it on the stage. It is true that it was much applauded on its first performance, and was consequently announced “to be repeated three times a week till further notice.” But, as we have often said, a first night’s reception now-a-days says nothing for the future success of a new piece. As an acting play it is impossible that Colombe’s Birthday can be permanently attractive. It is deficient in the most essential elements of stage effect, plot, and incident, while the few incidents which it does contain are not of a kind to create suspense or interest. It cannot, indeed, be called a play, if by this term we mean a work intended and calculated for theatrical representation. It is a poem in a dramatic form; and its beauties (which are not small) are of a kind which will be best appreciated in the closet; and indeed, Mr. Browning’s style is rendered so obscure by his peculiarities of diction, that every scene contains passages which cannot be comprehended without a deliberate and repeated perusal—and sometimes not even then.
While, however, we question the wisdom of bringing this piece on the stage, we cannot but applaud the manner in which this has been done. The heroine is charmingly acted by Miss Helen Faucit; the other principal characters are well sustained, and every attention has been bestowed upon the scenery, costumes, and all the appliances of the stage.
Reviewed:
Colombe’s Birthday (RB), performance, London, 25 April 1853.
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