R530430G. Colombe’s Birthday.
The Literary Gazette, 30 April 1853, p. 435.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 388–389.
The production at the Haymarket, on Monday, of Mr. Browning’s fine drama of Colombe’s Birthday, was an interesting experiment upon the state of the public taste, and speaks well for the determination of Mr. Buckstone to illustrate the higher drama, so far as the means within his reach will admit. The play is not widely known, and the peculiarities of such of Mr. Browning’s dramas as had previously been performed did not predispose the general public in its favour. But Colombe’s Birthday was well known to those who had studied it to possess true dramatic interest, while it was rich both in poetical elements and in characters drawn with masterly lines, and worthy the illustration of high histrionic powers. Without violent passions or exciting situations, the story has a strong human interest, and affords scope for the display of a great variety of character, and the development of deep emotion quite sufficient to enchain the attention and elicit the sympathies of all whose thoughts and feelings are not merely superficial. Colombe, a young girl living among “the river-flowers” of Ravestein, finds herself on her father’s death elevated to the duchy of Juliers and Cleves, and has possessed this dignity for a year, when the play opens on the anniversary of her birthday. Under the Salic law the right to the succession vested in Prince Berthold, who has just forwarded a requisition to her to abdicate in his favour. Her courtiers are in an agony as to who shall deliver this document to their mistress, from whom they had concealed the operation of the Salic law, when Valence, an advocate of Cleves, arrives with a petition from his townsmen for the redress of their grievances. The courtiers agree to secure him an interview with the Duchess, on condition that he shall first present her with the requisition, of whose contents he is not informed. He does so. Colombe at once receives the twofold shock of finding her title disputed, and all those on whose devotion she has relied turning coldly from her. Valence alone stands by her, and urges her to trust in the loyalty and attachment of her subjects. The isolation of the girl, and the sudden transition from a life surrounded by sunshine and adulation to one of anxiety demanding energetic action, is full of interest. The contrast between the devotion of Valence, whom she sees now for the first time, and her sycophant courtiers, rivets her attention upon him, and to him she entrusts the office of receiving and replying to Prince Berthold’s claims. The Prince arrives, is struck by the beauty and noble heart of the Duchess, and instead of enforcing these claims, endeavours to compound them gracefully by the offer of his hand. Valence is entrusted to convey the offer, a circumstance which affords the poet an opportunity of constructing a scene with Colombe, which, for beauty of conception and treatment, has not been surpassed by any modern dramatist. Valence, himself by this time deeply enamoured of the Duchess, urges the advantages of the alliance, and in doing so lets fall the admission that he is himself in love. The effect of this admission on the Duchess, whose feelings, unknown to herself, have become deeply interested in Valence, is developed with a subtle delicacy which is peculiarly charming. Unaware that it is herself that Valence loves, and only known that he despairs of a return, the lady’s rank being above his own, Colombe urges him to press his suit, when, carried away by his emotions, he falls at her feet, confessing it is herself he loves. In the first surprise, we are left in doubt how the claims of the two suitors are to end; but if Colombe’s mind wavers, it is not for long, and the play closes with her renouncement of the Prince, with the duchy in possession and the empire in expectancy, for Valence and the sylvan solitudes of Ravestein. The story is handled throughout with a freshness and originality of manner, equally confounding to the “fast” and the conventional school of critics, but which produced a marked result, in the close and fascinated attention of the audience. Much has been said about the obscurity of the language, and the metaphysical character of the thoughts; but this is the mere cant of those who have neither read the play nor given it careful attention in the theatre. The story is clear, the language is clear, the emotions are simple and direct, the ideas rise naturally out of the circumstances. Commonplace they certainly are not, and the old sing-song of sounding phraseology has been carefully avoided. There are no fillings up of lines with sound. Nothing is said without a purpose, and things are often so tersely said, that unless the actor has fully mastered the poet’s meaning, he must fail of conveying it to the audience. If the drama does not succeed upon the stage it is from no fault in itself, but partly from want of power in the actors, partly from want of appreciation by the critics whose duty it is to attract the public to it, and who for the most part have not, it appears to us, done it justice. This is just one of those plays where the aid of the press is important as a guide to the public. There is nothing clap-trap about it, all being trusted to natural action, a poetical treatment, and the delineation of character. But instead of mastering its merits, and pointing attention to its abundant beauties, critics think they discharge their functions by sneering at a work, of which they plainly know nothing beyond what they have learned from a careless observation of it on the stage, as uninteresting, obscure, and unfit for representation. If unfitness there be, it lies in this, that the play demands performers of a higher stamp than are now upon the stage. Prince Berthold, Valence, Sir Guibert, and Melchior, are all parts requiring actors of a calibre much higher than Mr. Howe, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. W. Farren, and Mr. Rogers. Of an ambitious nature, that has concentrated its strength during years of depressed circumstances; highbred and reserved; cold, but capable of generosity; energetic, yet speculative; subjecting everything, even his own circumstances and his own heart, to the scrutiny of philosophic analysis, the Prince Berthold of the poet has little in common with the bluff rugged soldier portrayed by Mr. Howe. As little do we find in the sombre monotony of Mr. Sullivan’s elocution the fiery energy of Valence, the man in whom passion and poetry have only slept, to be roused into wilder commotion by contact with the grace and purity and elevation of Colombe. Speeches which are full of broken emotion, and where a great actor would electrify the house, fall cold and meaningless from Mr. Sullivan’s lips. Sir Guibert requires a more important bearing than Mr. W. Farren has at command, and indeed all the courtiers are most imperfectly presented, with the exception of the Sir Clugnet of Mr. Tilbury. Mr. Rogers takes pains with Melchior, the Prince’s friend and counsellor, but he conveys little of the contemplative student of life and motives, whom the poet has so subtly sketched. The Colombe of Miss Helen Faucit is a portraiture in which Mr. Browning’s beautiful conception receives all the completeness and enrichment which a great actress is able to bestow. In the development of all the new world of feelings, which crowd upon her so suddenly and so rapidly in this her first great day of trial, that nice gradation is observed, which leaves at the close the impression of perfect reality. Through the finished delicacy of the details the traces of great latent power are evident, which, while they help to elevate our impression of the character of Colombe, increase our admiration of the powers of the actress who so skilfully subordinates her genius to perfect harmony with the poet’s idea. Her clear and melodious enunciation of the dialogue and delicate phases of emotion seem to discover a force and beauty in the poem which is not elsewhere apparent. The mise en scène is admirable. The scenery and adjuncts have been skilfully selected, and are executed in the best style. A word as to the orchestra in this theatre. The exceeding vehemence of the brass instruments and drum is intolerable.
Reviewed:
Colombe’s Birthday (RB), performance, London, 25 April 1853.
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