had the ready
abandonment to emotion of the average emotional man. Mr. Warner has an
irritating voice and manner, but he has emotional power, not fine nor
subtle, but genuine; he feels and he makes you feel. He has the quality,
in short, of the play itself, but a quality more tolerable in the
actor, who is concerned only with the rendering of a given emotion, than
in the playwright, whose business it is to choose, heighten, and dignify
the emotion which he gives to him to render.

DRAMA

PROFESSIONAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL

Last week gave one an amusing opportunity of contrasting the merits and
the defects of the professional and the unprofessional kind of play.
"The Gay Lord Quex" was revived at the Duke of York's Theatre, and Mr.
Alexander produced at the St. James's Theatre a play called "The Finding
of Nancy," which had been chosen by the committee of the Playgoers' Club
out of a large number of plays sent in for competition. The writer, Miss
Netta Syrett, has published one or two novels or collections of stories;
but this, as far as I am aware, is her first attempt at a play. Both
plays were unusually well acted, and therefore may be contrasted without
the necessity of making allowances for the way in which each was
interpreted on the stage.

Mr. Pinero is a playwright with a sharp sense of the stage, and eye for
what is telling, a cynical intelligence which is much more interesting
than the uncertain outlook of most of our playwrights. He has no breadth
of view, but he has a clear view; he makes his choice out of human
nature deliberately, and he deals in his own way with the materials that
he selects. Before saying to himself: what would this particular person
say or do in these circumstances? he says to himself: what would it be
effective on the stage for this particular person to do or say? He
suggests nothing, he tells you all he knows; he cares to know nothing
but what immediately concerns the purpose of his play. The existence of
his people begins and ends with their first and last speech on the
boards; the rest is silence, because he can tell you nothing about it.
Sophy Fullgarney is a remarkably effective character as a
stage-character, but when the play is over we know no more about her
than we should know about her if we had spied upon her, in her own way,
from behind some bush or keyhole. We have seen a picturesque and amusing
exterior, and that is all. Lord Quex does not, I suppose, profe