The Eyes of Max Carrados by Ernest Bramah

Author:Ernest Bramah [Bramah, Ernest]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Limited
Published: 2013-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

The Missing Actress Sensation

First nights were not what they were, even within the memory of playgoers who would be startled to hear anyone else refer to them as ‘elderly’. But there are yet occasions of exception, and the production of Call a Spade – at the Argosy Theatre was marked by at least one feature of note. The play itself was ‘sound’, though not epoch-making. The performance of the leading lady was satisfactory and exactly what was to be expected from her. The leading gentleman was equally effective in a part which – as eight out of twelve dramatic critics happily phrased it on the morrow – ‘fitted him like a glove’; and on the same preponderance of opinion the character actor ‘contrived to extract every ounce of humour from the material at his disposal.’ In other words, Call a Spade – might so far be relied upon to run an attenuating course for about fifty nights and then to be discreetly dropped, ‘pending the continuance of its triumphal progress at another West End House – should a suitable habitation become available.’

But a very different note came into the reviews when the writers passed to the achievement of another member of the company – a young actress described on the programme as Miss Una Roscastle. Miss Roscastle was unknown to London critics and London audiences. She had come from Dublin with no very great dramatic reputation, but it is to be presumed that the quite secondary part which she had been given on her first metropolitan appearance was peculiarly suited to her talent. No one was more surprised than the author at the remarkable characterisation that ‘Mary Ryan’ assumed in Miss Roscastle’s hands. He was the more surprised because he had failed to notice anything of the kind at rehearsals. Dimly he suspected that the young lady had got more out of the part than he had ever put into it, and while outwardly loud in his expression of delight, he was secretly uncertain whether to be pleased or annoyed. The leading lady also went out of her way to congratulate the young neophyte effusively on her triumph – and then slapped her unfortunate dresser on very insufficient provocation; but the lessee manager spoke of his latest acquisition with a curious air of restraint. At the end of the second act Miss Roscastle took four calls. After that she was only required for the first few minutes of the last act, and many among the audience noted with surprise that she did not appear with the company at the fall of the curtain – she had, in fact, already left the house. All the same the success of the piece constituted a personal triumph for herself. Thenceforth, instead of, ‘Oh, yes, you might do worse than book seats at the Argosy,’ the people who had been, said, ‘Now, don’t forget; you positively must see Miss Roscastle in Call a Spade – ,’ and as the Press had said

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