H.L. Mencken

Baltimore Evening Sun/February 10, 1911

“Preserving Mr. Panmure”

One of the most amusing farces in the English language—a farce which constantly skirts the borders of high comedy—is “A Wife Without a Smile” by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero. But when it was produced in 1904, an evil-minded stage manager introduced obscenity of a gross sort into its stage business, and so it made a flat and inglorious failure. That failure seemed to flabbergast Pinero and dry up the wells of his humor. In the past he had done almost as many comedies as serious plays, but thereafter he stuck to the solemn things of life, writing “His House in Order” in 1906, “The Thunderbolt” in 1908 and “Mid-Channel” in 1909. Of sportiveness he carefully fought shy—and for nearly long years.  

Now, however, he has ventured once more into his old field. The first fruit of his return is a place called “Preserving Mr. Panmure,” which had its initial performance at the Comedy Theatre in London a fort-night or so ago. “Preserving Mr. Panmure,” judging by the London reviews, is in the true manner of the early Pinero—of that Pinero who wrote “The Magistrate,” “The School Mistress,” “Dandy Dick” and other immensely funny things of 30 years ago. It is, in brief, pure farce, but it is farce shot through with reality and illuminated by the shrewd philosophy of an old observer of men and their silly ways. 

Who Kissed Josepha?

Mr. Panmure sets the fun going by kissing the beautiful Josepha, governess to his young daughter. It happens in the Panmure country house, and Panmure is so atrociously idiotic and ugly that Josepha gives him a wallop over the head and is for heaving a vase at him. Panmure, quickly seized by remorse, bags pitifully that he be not denounced to his wife, for that wife of his is a moralist of a particularly virulent breed and he fears her just and cannibalistic wrath. Josepha promises, but not until the two have made so much noise at their debate that the whole household is aroused. When Mrs. Panmure rushes in she at once divines that Josepha has had a fearful encounter with some awful man, and Josepha, in fact, is soon forced to confess that she has been kissed. 

But by whom? Panmure has made good his escape, and there are four other men in the house—videlicet. Reginald Stulkeley, M. P.; his private secretary, Talbot Woodhouse; Mr. Hebblethwalte, a doddering ancient, and Mr. Loring, a young jackass. Which of these fellows is guilty? Josepha, having confessed enough to start the hunt, refuses to confess any more. One by one the four men are put on trial by the women, with Mrs. Panmure presiding as chief inquisitor. Only Mr. Panmure, that felonious old goat, is unsuspected. 

Thus the first and second acts go on, with the women cross-examining the men and badgering Josepha to reveal the guilty wretch’s name. In the second act we see poor Josepha on the verge of distraction. The women, and particularly Mr. Panmure, will not give her a moment’s peace. They are determined to ferret out the criminal and punish him, for jealousy has bolstered up their horror at his crime, and so they question Josepha over and over again, and call upon her pathetically to tell the truth. 

Half scared to death, she flies to the men for protection—that is to say, to two of them, Mr. Stulkeley and young Woodhouse. They are in the library, preparing a political speech when she bursts upon them. Her demand is that one or the other of them confess to the crime and thus put an end to the hunt. At the start both refuse in alarm, but Josepha is a very pretty girl, and it is not long before she has them melting. Then enters Mr. Panmure himself—the real offender. Gathering what is going on, he assumes the solemn post of grand inquisitor. The women troop in and the trail is begun all over again, with the evidence pointing more and more toward Stulkeley. The curtain comes down when young Woodhouse, who has begun to view Josepha very admiringly, steps forward and boldly confesses that it was he that kissed her!

The End of the Comedy

In the fourth act we come upon fresh trouble. Stulkeley and Woodhouse are now both wildly in love with Josepha, and each is determined to propose to her. They resolve to draw lots to determine which shall have the first chance. The folded papers put into a tobacco jar and Woodhouse reaches in to draw. His hand is stuck in the jar—he can’t get it out. Stulkeley (the traitor) rushes off at once to find Josepha, and when Woodhouse follows the door is banged in his face. He peeps through the keyhole. Josepha. within, prods him in the eye with a feather. The day is lost: she will wed Stulkeley! 

And then, at the very end, Panmure is denounced by a footman who saw him kiss Josepha—and promptly throws himself upon the mercy of the court. His wife, having no alternative, forgives him and the curtain falls.

The London critics agree that the third act of this piece contains some of the best comedy that Pinero has put forth for years. “For sheer fun,” says A. B. Walkley in the Times, “there is no denying that this third act is as good as anything Sir Arthur in his most farcical moods has yet given us. You must needs roar with laughter—if just a little on the wrong side of the mouth.” But the fourth act shows a falling off, and in other places the play reveals serious defects in detail. For one thing, Panmure is made so hideous that he is rather disgusting. For another thing, the Piety of Mrs. Panmure is ridiculed in a manner that often departs from the canons of good taste. “In his yearning to lash hypocrisy,” says the London Morning Post, “Pinero has gone too far.”

Pinere in this Country

No doubt “Preserving Mr. Panmure” will soon be seen on the American stage. It is the sort of stuff which most of the theatregoers like. Pinero’s most serious plays, at least in late years, have not prospered on this side of the Atlantic. “His House in Order” made only a success of esteem; “The Thunderbolt,” at the New Theatre in New York, did little better; and “Mid-Channel,” which Ethel Barrymore presented, won her more glory than dollars. Meanwhile, it is interesting to observe that an earlier Pinero play, the sentimental “Trelawney of the Wells,” has been lately revived with considerable success. 

Soma day an astute Frohman will revive “The Schoolmistress,” “Dandy Dick” and “The Magistrate” and give “A Wife without a Smile” another chance. Upon that Frohman, unless I err, the dollars will descend in a flood.