[Illustration: THE LAGGARD LOVER. _Lena_ (Miss MARIE LÖHR) _to Heyst_ (Mr. MURRAY CARRINGTON). "OH YES, YOU SMILE ALL RIGHT; BUT ONE MAY SMILE AND SMILE AND YET GET NO FORRARDER."]
On the whole I can't think the cast was up to its extremely difficult task, if you estimate that task, as it seems to me you must, to be the reproducing of the original _Victory_ characters. Perhaps Mr. SAM LIVESEY'S _Ricardo_ was the nearest, though the primitive savagery of his wooing had to be toned down in the interests of propriety. Mr. GAYER MACKAY made his _Jones_ interesting and plausible in the quieter opening movements. In the intended tragic spasms one felt that he became rather comic than sinister. Not his fault, I think. He had no room or time to work up his part. That should also apply to Mr. GARRY'S _Schomberg_, though he doesn't seem to have tried to fit himself into the skin of that entertaining villain. Mr. MURRAY CARRINGTON had an exceedingly tough task with his _Heyst_. But was he even as detached and eccentric as the average modern don? Certainly he was not the man of mystery of the original pattern, but rather the amiable comely film-hero.
Miss LÖHR had her interesting moments, the best of them, perhaps, in the First Act. In her big scene, where the knife is to be won from _Ricardo_, she was no doubt hampered by the tradition that it is necessary to play down to the carefully cultivated imbecility of the audience in order that they should not misunderstand the most obvious points. It's not flattering to us, but it can't be helped. Probably we deserve it. But need she have been quite so refined? Only very occasionally does she remember that _Lena_ is fine matter in a "common" mould, which is surely of the essence of the situation. I do seriously recommend a re-reading of what should be a character full of blood, which is ever so much more amusing than sawdust, however charmingly encased. I feel sure she could shock and at the same time please the groundlings if she let herself go.
And where, by the way, did she get that charmingly-cut skirt in the Second Act? She certainly hadn't it in her bundle when she left the hotel. And yet the stage-manager will go to the trouble, for the sake of a quite misguided realism, of making the hotel orchestra play against the dialogue as if the persistent coughing of the audience were not sufficient handicap to his team.