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Poe's
Evolving
Views
on "Fashion"
Here
in full are
reproduced the two reviews for the
debut run of "Fashion" that Poe published in The Broadway Journal.
They have merit, not merely because
Poe was the only of Mowatt's critics to go on to become a world-famous
poet and author, but because the reviews themselves are
remarkable. In them, Poe goes beyond the duty of the typical
commercial drama critic. He does not stop at only answering
the
question of "Is this production sufficiently amusing to justify the
price of admission?" -In these two rather lengthy
reviews, Poe
puts himself in the position of a literary and cultural critic, asking,
"Does this play demonstrate literary merit?" and "Does it in any
way enunciate
some unique quality about being an inhabitant of the U.S. at
this time in history in a way that is distinct from European
culture?" It appears that it was primarily new ideas about
how
"Fashion"
might answer this last question that called Poe back to the play for a
second visit.
Poe
attended the play's premiere at the Park Theater on Broadway. His first
review was published in The
Broadway Journal
on March 29, 1849. Living in a time that was completely innocent of the
concept of "spoilers," he began his review with a complete rundown
of every single significant incident in the entire plot along
with colorful commentary on his opinions of the characters:
THE
plot of “Fashion” runs thus: Adam
Trueman, a blunt, warm-hearted, shrewd, irascible, wealthy, and
generous old
farmer of Cattaraugus County, N. Y., had a daughter, (Ruth) who eloped
with an
adventurer. The father forgave the daughter, but resolving to
disappoint the
hopes of the fortune hunter, gave the couple a bare subsistence. In
consequence
of this, the husband maltreated, and finally abandoned the wife, who
returned,
broken-hearted, to her father’s house and there died, after giving
birth to a
daughter, Gertrude That she might escape the ills
of fortune-hunting by
which her mother was destroyed, Trueman sent the child, of an early
age, to be
brought up by relatives in Geneva; giving his own neighbours to
understand that
she was dead. The Geneva friends were instructed to educate her in
habits of
self-dependence, and to withhold from her the secret of her parentage,
and
heir-ship; — the grandfather’s design being to secure for her a husband
who
will love her solely for herself. The friends by advice of the
grandfather,
procured for her when grown up to womanhood, a situation as music
teacher in
the house of Mr. Tiffany, a quondam foot-peddler, and now by dint of
industry a
dry-goods merchant doing a flashy if not flourishing business; much of
his
success having arisen from the assistance of Trueman, who knew him and
admired
his hones: industry as a travelling peddler.
The
efforts of the drygoods
merchant, however, are insufficient
to keep pace with the extravagance of his wife, who has become infected
with a
desire to shine as
a lady of fashion, in which desire she is seconded
by her daughter,
Seraphina, the musical pupil of Gertrude. The follies of the mother and
daughter so far involve Tiffany as to lead him into a forgery of a
friend’s
endorsement. This crime is suspected by his confidential clerk,
Snobson, an
intemperate blackguard, who at length extorts from his employer a
confession,
under a promise of secrecy provided that Seraphina shall become Mrs.
Snobson.
Mrs. Tiffany, however, is by no means privy to this arrangement: she is
anxious
to secure a title for Seraphina, and advocates the pretensions of Count
Jolimaitre, a quondam English cook, barber and valet, whose real name
was
Gustave Treadmill, and who, having spent much time at Paris, suddenly
took
leave of that city, for that city’s good, and his own; abandoning to
despair a
little laundress (Millinette) to whom he was betrothed, but who had
rashly
entrusted him with the whole of her hard earnings during life.
Gertrude
is beloved (for her
own sake) by Colonel Howard “of
the regular army,” and returns his affection. The Colonel, however,
makes no
proposal, because he considers that his salary of “fifteen hundred a
year” is
no property of his own, but belongs to his creditors. He has endorsed
for a
friend to the amount of seven thousand dollars, and is left to settle
the debt
as he can. He talks, therefore, of resigning, going west, making a
fortune,
returning, and then offering his hand with his fortune, to Gertrude.
At
this juncture, Trueman
pays a visit to his old friend Tiffany,
and is put at fault in respect to the true state of Gertrude’s heart
(and
indeed of everything else) by the tattle of Prudence, Mrs. Tiffany’s
old-maiden
sister. She gives the old man to understand that Gertrude
is in love with T. Tennyson Twinkle, a
poet who is in the sad habit of reading aloud his own verses, but who
has
really very respectable pretensions, as times go. T. T. T.
nevertheless, has no
thought of Gertrude, but is making desperate love to the imaginary
money-bags
of Seraphina. He is rivalled, however, not only by the Count, but by
Augustus
Fogg, a gentleman of excessive haut ton, who wears
black and has a
general indifference to everything but hot suppers.
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Millinette,
in the meantime,
has followed her deceiver to
America, and happens to make an engagement as femme de chambre
and
general instructor in Parisian modes, at the very house (of all houses
in the
world) where her Gustave, as Count Jolimaitre, is paying his addresses
to Miss
Tiffany. The laundress recognizes the cook, who, at first overwhelmed
with
dismay, finally recovers his self-possession, and whispers to his
betrothed a
place of appointment at which he promises to “explain all.” This
appointment is
overheard by Gertrude, who for some time has had her suspicions of the
Count.
She resolves to personate Millinette in the interview, and thus obtain
means of
exposing the impostor. Contriving therefore to detain the femme
de chambre
from the assignation, she herself (Gertrude) blowing out the candles
and
disguising her voice meets the Count at the appointed room in Tiffany’s
house,
while the rest of the company (invited to a ball) are at supper. In
order to
accomplish the detention of Millinette, she has been forced to give
some
instructions to Zeke (re-baptized Adolph by Mrs. Tiffany) a negro
footman in
the Tiffany livery. These instructions are overheard by Prudence, who
mars
everything by bringing the whole household into the room of appointment
before
any secret has been extracted from the Count.
Matters are made worse for Gertrude by a futile attempt on the Count’s
part to
conceal himself in a closet. No explanations are listened to. Mrs.
Tiffany and
Seraphina are in a great rage. Howard is in despair — and True man
entertains
so bad an opinion of his grand-daughter that he has an idea of
suffering her
still to remain in ignorance of his relationship. The company disperse
in much
admired disorder, and everything is at odds and ends.
Finding
that she can get no
one to hear her explanations,
Gertrude writes an account of all to her friends at Geneva. She is
interrupted
by Trueman — shows him the letter — he comprehends all — and hurries
the lovers
into the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Tiffany, the former of whom is in
despair,
and the latter in high glee at information just received that Seraphina
has
eloped with Count Jolimaitre.
While
Trueman is here avowing his relationship,
bestowing Gertrude upon Howard, and relieving Tiffany from the fangs of
Snobson
by showing that person that he is an accessary to his employer’s
forgery,
Millinette enters, enraged at the Count’s perfidy to herself, and
exposes him
in full. Scarcely has she made an end when Seraphina appears in search
of her
jewels, which the Count, before committing himself by the overt act of
matrimony, has insisted upon her securing. As she does not return from
this
errand, however, sufficiently soon, her lover approaches on tip-toe to
see what
has become of her; is seen and caught by Millinette; and finding the
game up,
confesses everything with exceeding nonchalance. Trueman extricates
Tiffany
from his embarrassments on condition of his sending his wife and
daughter to
the country to get rid of their fashionable notions; and even carries
his
generosity so
far
as to establish the Count in a restaurant with the proviso
that
he, the Count, shall in the character and proper habiliments
of cook Treadmill, carry around his own advertisement to all the
fashionable
acquaintances who had solicited his intimacy while performing the rôle
of Count Jolintaitre. 1
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After
doing away with any suspense a potential viewer might have experienced
when witnessing the end of "Fashion" themselves or discovering any
twists of its complex plot unaided, Poe now has sufficiently equipped
his readers to journey along with him as he dives into a discussion
that most truly interests him -- the relative originality
of this work.
Cover of the Broadway Journal,
1845
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We
presume that not even the
author of a plot such as this,
would be disposed to claim for it anything on the score of originality
or
invention. Had it, indeed, been designed as a burlesque upon the arrant
conventionality of stage incidents in general, we should have regarded
it as a
palpable hit. And, indeed, while on the point of absolute
unoriginality, we may
as well include in one category both the events and the characters. The
testy
yet generous old grandfather, who talks in a domineering tone,
contradicts
everybody, slaps all mankind on the back, thumps his cane on the floor,
listens
to nothing, chastises all the fops, comes to the assistance of all the
insulted
women, and relieves all the dramatis personæ from
all imaginable
dilemmas: — the hen-pecked husband of low origin, led into difficulties
by his
vulgar and extravagant wife: — the die-away daughter aspiring to be a
Countess:
— the villain of a clerk who aims at the daughter’s hand through the
fears of
his master, some of whose business secrets he possesses: — the French
grisette
metamorphosed into the dispenser of the highest Parisian modes and
graces: —
the intermeddling old maid making bare-faced love to every unmarried
man she
meets: — the stiff and stupid man of high fashion who utters only a
single set
phrase: — the mad poet reciting his own verses: — the negro footman in
livery
impressed with a profound sense of his own consequence, and obeying
with
military promptness all orders from everybody: — the patient,
accomplished
and beautiful
governess, who proves in the end to be the heiress of the testy old
gentleman:
— the high-spirited officer, in love with the governess, and refusing
to marry
her in the first place because he is too poor, and
in the second place
because she is too rich: — and, lastly, the foreign
impostor with a
title, a drawl, an eye-glass, and a moustache, who
makes love to the
supposititious heiress of the play in strutting about the stage with
his
coat-tails thrown open after the fashion of Robert Macaire, and who, in
the
end; is exposed and disgraced through the instrumentality of some wife
or
mistress whom he has robbed and abandoned: — these things we say,
together with
such incidents as one person supplying another’s place at an
assignation, and
such équivoques as arise from a surprisal in such
cases — the
concealment and discovery of one of the parties in a closet, — and the
obstinate refusal of all the world to listen to an explanation, are the
common
and well-understood property of the playwright, and have been so,
unluckily
time out of mind.
But for this very reason
they should be abandoned at once.
Their hackneyism is no longer to be endured. The day has at length
arrived when
men demand rationalities in place of conventionalities. It will no
longer do to
copy, even with absolute accuracy, the whole tone of even so ingenious
and
really spirited a thing as the “School for Scandal.” It was
comparatively good
in its day, but it would be positively bad at the present day, and
imitations
of it are inadmissible at any day.
Bearing
in mind the spirit
of these observations, we may say
that “Fashion” is theatrical but not dramatic. It is a pretty
well-arranged
selection from the usual
routine of stage characters, and stage
manœuvres — but there is not one
particle of any nature beyond greenroom nature, about it. No such
events ever
happened in fact, or ever could happen; as happen in “Fashion.” Nor are
we
quarrelling, now, with the mere exaggeration of
character or incident; —
were this all, the play, although bad as comedy might be good as farce,
of
which the exaggeration of possible incongruities is the chief element.
Our
fault-finding is on the score of deficiency in verisimilitude — in
natural art
— that is to say, in art based in the natural laws of man’s heart and
understanding.2
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At
this point in his critique, Poe switches from commenting
specifically on "Fashion" to using the play as an exemplar
of all the
faults of the mannered , presentation style of dramas of his day:
When
for example, Mr. Augustus Fog; (whose name by the bye has
little application to his character) says, in reply to Mrs. Tiffany’s
invitation to the conservatory, that he is “indifferent to flowers,”
and
replies in similar terms to every observation addressed to him, neither
are we
affected by any sentiment of the farcical, nor can we feel any sympathy
in the
answer on the ground of its being such as any human being would
naturally make
at all times to all queries — making no other answer to any. Were the
thing
absurd in itself we should laugh, and a legitimate effect would be
produced;
but unhappily the only absurdity we perceive is the absurdity of the
author in
keeping so pointless a phrase in any character’s mouth. The shameless
importunities of Prudence to Trueman are in the same category — that of
a total
deficiency in verisimilitude, without any compensating incongruousness
— that
is to say, farcicalness, or humor. Also in the same category we must
include the
rectangular crossings and recrossings of the dramatis personæ
on the
stage; the coming forward to the foot-lights when anything of interest
is to be
told; the reading of private
letters in a loud rhetorical tone; the preposterous soliloquising; and
the even
more preposterous “asides.” Will our play-wrights never learn, through
the
dictates of common sense, that an audience under no circumstances can
or will
be brought to conceive that what is sonorous in their own ears at a
distance of
fifty feet from the speaker cannot be heard by an actor at the distance
of one
or two?
It
must be understood that we are not condemning Mrs. Mowatt’s
comedy in particular, but the modern drama in general. Comparatively,
there is
much merit in “Fashion,” and in many respects (and those of a telling
character) it is superior to any American play. It has, in especial,
the very
high merit of simplicity in plot. What the Spanish play-wrights mean by
dramas
of intrigue are the worst acting dramas in the
world:
— the intellect of an audience call
never safely be fatigued by complexity. The
necessity for verbose explanation
on the part of Trueman at the close of “Fashion” is, however, a serious
defect.
The dénouement should in all cases be full of action
and nothing
else. Whatever cannot be explained by such action should be
communicated at the
opening of the play.3
As
a
modern viewer, accustomed to having our choice of a variety of dramatic
styles -- including a more naturalistic style of dramatic presentation
when we wish it, it is hard to not have sympathy for a
theatre critic
forced to live on a diet of constant melodrama. It is easy to have a
little empathy for the somewhat bitter tone of Poe disparaging for what
he felt was the poor
taste of the general theatre-going masses as he surmises:
The
colloquy in Mrs. Mowatt’s comedy is spirited, generally
terse, and well-seasoned at points with sarcasm of much power. The management
throughout shows the fair authoress to be thoroughly conversant with
our
ordinary stage effects, and we might say a good deal in commendation of
some of
the “sentiments” interspersed: — we are really ashamed, nevertheless,
to record
our deliberate opinion that if “Fashion” succeed at all (and we think
upon the
whole that it will) it will owe the greater portion of its success to
the very
carpets, the very ottomans, the very chandeliers, and the very
conservatories
that gained so decided a popularity for that most inane and utterly
despicable
of all modern comedies — the “London Assurance” of Boucicault.4
However
this is not the end of the review. Elements of the play that seemed to
have been added in rehearsal went a long way to change Poe's over all
opinion of the production and persuaded him to end on a much more
hopeful note:
The
above remarks were written before the comedy’s
representation at the Park, and were based on the author’s original
MS., in
which some modifications have been made — and not at all times, we
really
think, for the better. A good point, for example, has been omitted, at
the dénouement.
In the original, Trueman (as will be seen in our digest) pardons the
Count, and
even establishes him in a restaurant, on condition
of his carrying
around to all his fashionable acquaintances his own advertisement as restaurateur.
There is a piquant, and dashing deviation, here,
from the ordinary routine
of stage “poetic justice,” which could not
have failed to tell, and which was, perhaps, the one original point of
the
play. We can conceive no good reason for its omission. A scene, also,
has been
introduced, to very little purpose. We watched its effect narrowly and
found it
null. It narrated nothing; it illustrated nothing; and was absolutely
nothing
in itself. Nevertheless it might have been
introduced for the purpose of
giving time for some other scenic arrangements going on out of sight.5
Poe
then jaunts
through the last two paragraphs of this review, covering material that
another drama critic might have used to make up their entire entry on
the play. He rushes through these thoughts at such a blunt
and
break-neck pace that they seem to be mere transcriptions of impressions
he jotted down during the performance. Poe even
unapologetically
includes specific line readings for actors and suggestions for
improvements on bits of blocking:
A
well-written prologue was well-delivered by Mr. Crisp, whose
action is far better than his reading – although the latter, with one
exception, is good. It is pure irrationality to recite verse, as if it
were
prose, without distinguishing the lines: -- we shall touch this subject
again.
As the Count, Mr. Crisp did everything that could be done: -- his grace
of
gesture is preeminent. Miss Horne looked charmingly as Seraphina.
Trueman and
Tiffany were represented with all possible effect by Chippendale and
Barry: --
and Mrs. Barry as Mrs. Tiffany was the life of the play. Zeke was
caricatured.
Dyott makes a bad colonel – his figure is too diminutive. Prudence was
well
exaggerated by Mrs. Knight – and the character in her hands, elicited
more applause
than anyone other of the dramatis
personae.
Some of
the author’s
intended points were lost through the inevitable inadvertences of a
first
representation – but upon the whole, everything went off exceedingly
well. To
Mrs. Barry we would suggest that the author’s intention was, perhaps,
to have elite pronounced ee-light, and bouquet,
bokett: -- the effect
would be more
certain. To Zeke, we would say, bring up the table bodily by all means
(as
originally designed) when the fow tool
is called for. The scenery was very good indeed – and the carpet,
ottomans,
chandelier, etc. were also excellent of their kind. The entire “getting
up” was
admirable. “Fashion,” upon the whole, was well received by a large,
fashionable, and critical audience; and will succeed to the extent we
have
suggested above. Compared with the generality of modern dramas, it is a
good
play – compared with most American dramas it is a very
good one – estimated by the natural principles of dramatic
art, it is altogether unworthy of notice.6
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Poe returned to
"Fashion" for the next week's issue of The Broadway Journal.
Despite the many flaws he found in the writing and execution of
Mowatt's drama, something in the production had captured his
attention. He immediately confesses to have attended a
performance of the play every night of the intervening week. "Fashion"
had gone from being a cheap "School for Scandal" knockoff to being a
bit of an obsession for him. His tone is no longer brusque
and
dismissive, but is immediately apologetic:
SO
deeply have we felt interested
in
the question of Fashion’s success or failure, that we have been to see
it every
night since its first production; making careful note of its merits and
defects
as they were more and more distinctly developed in the gradually
perfected
representation of the play.
We
are enabled, however, to say but little either in
contradiction or in amplification of our last week’s remarks — which
were based
it will be remembered, upon the original MS. of the fair authoress, and
upon
the slightly modified performance of the first night. In what we then
said we
made all reasonable allowances for inadvertences at the outset — lapses
of
memory in the actors — embarrassments in scene-shifting — in a word for
general
hesitation and want of finish. The comedy now,
however, must be
understood as having all its capabilities fairly brought out, and the
result of
the perfect work is before us.7
As pointed
out earlier, Poe, in
many ways, is almost comically disinterested in performing the normal
function expected of a newspaper drama critic of the time. He does not
seem to care a whit about telling a theatre patron if they're getting
good value for their ticket price. Instead, he seems to
presciently be addressing us, readers from the future, trying to answer
the question "Is there any valid reason why this play should wind up in
theatre history books?" After repeated viewings,
Poe decides to change
his answer to yes. It is a grudging and conditional yes, but
it
is a yes:
In
one respect, perhaps, we have done Mrs. Mowatt unintentional
injustice. We are not quite sure, upon reflection, that her entire
thesis is
not an original one. We can call to mind no drama, just now, in which
the
design can be properly stated as the satirizing of fashion as
fashion.
Fashionable follies, indeed, as a class of folly in general, have been
frequently made the subject of dramatic ridicule — but the distinction
is
obvious — although certainly too nice a one to be of any practical
avail save
to the authoress of the new
comedy. Abstractly we may admit some pretension to originality of plan
— but,
in the presentation, this shadow of originality vanishes.
We
cannot, if we would, separate the dramatis personæ
from the moral they illustrate; and the characters overpower the moral.
We see
before us only personages with whom we have been familiar time out of
mind: —
when we look at Mrs. Tiffany, for example, and hear her speak, we think
of Mrs.
Malaprop in spite of ourselves, and in vain endeavour to think of
anything
else. The whole conduct and language of the comedy, too, have about
them the unmistakable flavor of the green-room. We doubt if a single point
either in the one or the other, is not a household thing with every
play-goer.
Not a joke is any less old than the hills — but this conventionality is
more
markedly noticeable in the sentiments, so-called. When, for instance,
Gertrude
in quitting the stage, is made to say “if she fail in a certain scheme
she will
be the first woman who was ever at a loss for a stratagem,” we are
affected
with a really painful sense of the antique. Such things are only to be
ranked
with the stage “properties,” and are inexpressibly wearisome and
distasteful to
everyone who hears them. And that they are sure to elicit what appears
to be
applause, demonstrates exactly nothing at all. People at these points
put their
hands together, and strike their canes against the floor for the reason
that
they feel these actions to be required of them as a matter of course,
and that
it would be ill-breeding not to comply with the requisition. All the
talk put
into the mouth of Mr. Trueman, too, about “when honesty shall be found
among
lawyers, patriotism among statesmen,” etc. etc. must be included in the
same
category.
The
error of the dramatist lies in not estimating at its true value the
absolutely
certain “approbation” of the audience in such cases
— an approbation
which is as pure a conventionality as are the “sentiments” themselves.
In
general it may be boldly asserted that the clapping of hands and the
rattling
of canes are no tokens of the success of any play —
such success as the
dramatist should desire: — let him watch the countenances
of his
audience, and remodel his points by these. Better still — let him “look
into
his own heart and write” — again better still (if he have the capacity)
let him
work out his purposes à priori from the infallible
principles of a
Natural Art.
We
are delighted to find, in the reception of Mrs. Mowatt’s
comedy, the clearest indications of a revival of the American drama —
that is
to say of an earnest disposition to see it revived. That the drama, in
general,
can go down, is the most untenable of all untenable ideas. Dramatic art
is, or
should be, a concentralization of all that which is entitled to the
appellation
of Art. When sculpture shall fail, and painting shall fail, and poetry,
and
music; — when men shall no longer take pleasure in eloquence, and in
grace of
motion, and in the beauty of woman, and in truthful representations of
character, and in the consciousness of sympathy in their enjoyment of
each and
all, then and not till then, may we look for that
to sink into
insignificance, which, and which alone, affords opportunity for the
conglomeration of these infinite and imperishable sources of delight.8
Although
flawed, Poe found "Fashion" to have merit. However he does
have
some problem in getting to the specifics of exactly where those merits
lie. Perhaps
Poe found himself enthralled by that rarest and hardest to
explain of theatrical phenomena - the Broadway hit. As with "Fashion,"
the text or individual theatrical elements of one of these singular
productions may on the
surface
be formulaic, derivative,
or even in retrospect appear trite. However,
because of certain confluences of culture and art, such memorable,
once-in-a-generation shows manage to capture an essence of what it
means to exist in a certain time and place that fascinates audiences
and uniquely excites their imaginations. "Fashion" might have been the
"Camelot," "My Fair Lady," "Rent," "Les Mis," or "Hamilton" of its day.
Buoyed
by the
enthusiasm witnessing such a phenomenon can engender, Poe continued his
review with his fondest hopes for the future for the theatre in the
U.S.:
There
is not the least danger, then, that the drama shall fail.
By the spirit of imitation evolved from its own nature, and to a
certain extent
an inevitable consequence of it, it has been kept absolutely
stationary
for a hundred years,
while its sister arts have rapidly flitted by and left it out of sight.
Each
progressive step of every other art seems to drive
back the drama to the
exact extent of that step — just as, physically, the objects by the
way-side
seem to be receding from the traveller in a coach. And the practical
effect, in
both cases is equivalent: — but yet, in fact, the drama has not
receded: on the
contrary it has very slightly advanced in one or two of the plays of
Sir Edward
Lytton Bulwer. The apparent recession or degradation, however, will, in
the
end, work out its own glorious recompense. The extent — the excess of
the
seeming declension will put the right intellects upon the serious
analysis of
its causes. The first noticeable result of this analysis will be a
sudden
indisposition on the part of all thinking men to commit themselves any
farther
in the attempt to keep up the present mad — mad because false —
enthusiasm
about “Shakspeare and the musical glasses.” Quite willing, of course,
to give
this indisputably great man the fullest credit for what he has done —
we shall
begin to ask our own understandings why it is that there is so very —
very much
which he has utterly failed to accomplish.
When
we arrive at this epoch, we are safe. The next step may be
the electrification of all mankind by the representation of a
play that
may be neither tragedy, comedy, farce, opera, pantomime, melodrama, or
spectacle, as we now comprehend these terms, but which may retain some
portion
of the idiosyncratic excellences of each, while it introduces a new
class of
excellence as yet unnamed because as yet undreamed-of in the world. As
an
absolutely necessary condition of its existence this play may usher in
a
thorough remodification of the theatrical physique.
This
step being fairly taken, the drama will be at once side by
side with the more definitive and less comprehensive arts which have
outstripped it by a century: — and now not merely will it outstrip them
in
turn, but devour them altogether. The drama will be all in all.9
Again
as in his last entry in the Broadway
Journal, Poe populates his last two paragraphs with the
sort of material other drama critics would have stretched into an
entire review:
We
cannot conclude these random
observations without again
recurring to the effective manner in which “Fashion” has been brought
forward
at the Park. Whatever the management and an excellent company could do
for the
comedy has been done. Many obvious improvements have been adopted since
the
first representation, and a very becoming deference has been
manifested, on the
part of the fair authoress and of Mr. Simpson, to everything wearing
the aspect
of public opinion — in especial to every reasonable hint from the
press. We are
proud, indeed, to find that many even of our own ill-considered
suggestions,
have received an attention which was scarcely their due.
In “Fashion” nearly all the Park
company have won new laurels.
Mr. Chippendale did wonders. Mr. Crisp was, perhaps, a little too
gentlemanly
in the Count — he has subdued the part, we think, a
trifle too much: —
there is a true grace of manner of which he finds
it difficult to divest
himself, and which occasionally interferes with his conceptions. Miss
Ellis did
for Gertrude all that any mortal had a right to expect. Millinette
could
scarcely have been better represented. Mrs. Knight as Prudence is
exceedingly
comic. Mr. and Mrs. Barry do invariably well — and of Mr. Fisher we
forgot say
in our last paper that he was one of the strongest points of the play.
As for
Miss Horne — it is but rank heresy to imagine
that there could be any difference of opinion respecting her.
She sets
at naught all criticism in winning all hearts. There is about her
lovely
countenance a radiant earnestness of expression
which is sure to play a
Circean trick with the judgment of every person who beholds it.10
Although he does not become blind to "Fashion's" faults, this second
review indicates that Poe has been beguiled by the show's charms. If
nothing else, these two reviews give us a picture of this sometimes
blunt and cynical critic falling in love with a play in spite of
himself.
NOTES
1. Edgar
Allan
Poe. "The New Comedy by Mrs. Mowatt." Broadway
Journal. March 29, 1845, p. 112-116.
2.
ibid. p. 117-118.
3.
ibid. p. 118-120.
4.
ibid. p. 120.
5.
ibid. p. 121.
6. ibid.
7.
Edgar Allan
Poe. "Prospects of the Drama -- Mrs. Mowatt’s Comedy." Broadway
Journal. April 5,
1845, p. 124
8.
ibid. p. 125-128.
9.
ibid p. 128-129.
10. ibid p. 129.
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