SocietyButterfly

The failure of A Society Butterfly led directly to Buchanan’s bankruptcy, the newspaper accounts of which are available in the Buchanan and the Law section. An account of the origins of the play and the reasons for its failure is included in Henry Murray’s memoir, A Stepson of Fortune.




	[Click the picture for a larger image.] The Nottingham Evening Post (12 March, 1894 - p.2) The latest addition to the ranks of theatrical managers is Mr. Robert Buchanan, who has arranged to take the Opera Comique, where he proposes to open in April with an adaptation by himself of one of his own novels. He also proposes to produce a new play by Mr. D. C. Murray. ___ The Glasgow Herald (16 March, 1894 - p.7) MRS LANGTRY has not appeared for a long time on the London boards, although the part of the heroine in the “Cotton King,” now played by Miss Marion Terry at the Adelphi, was, it is said, originally intended for and offered to her. She has, however, I learn, now signed an engagement to create in a few weeks the leading female rôle in a new play from the pen of Mr Robert Buchanan, adapted from one of that author’s books and to be produced at the Opera Comique. ___ The Derby Daily Telegraph (22 March, 1894 - p.2) Of late the Opéra Comique has been among the unluckiest of London theatres. When ill-luck attaches itself to a playhouse apparently the only method of exorcising the evil spirit is to convert it into a music-hall, as has just been done with the unfortunate Novelty. Mr. Robert Buchanan, however, is very hopeful of converting the Opéra Comique into a great success under his own management, which will begin shortly, but whether with a play of his own or one from another pen remains undecided. Mr. Christie Murray certainly has two or three good dramas up his sleeve for Mr. Buchanan’s use, and from this it is augured the bill of fare will be of a popular, if not melodramatic, kind. ___ The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (24 March, 1894 - p.5) Mrs. Langtry still holds in suspense her determination to enter into theatrical management again, but she is in town and busy with future arrangements, in pursuance of one of which she will reappear in the course of a few weeks in a new comedy of modern life by an author whose identity is for the moment withheld, but who there is reason to believe is Mr. Robert Buchanan. Negotiations are now in progress for a theatre. The choice is likely to rest between the Royalty and the Opera Comique, the only two houses that are understood to be at liberty. ___ The Stage (29 March, 1894 - p.11) On Saturday, April 7, also, the Opera Comique probably will be opened under the management of Mr. Robert Buchanan, who has secured the services of Mrs. Langtry for the new play written by himself with which he will open his season. ___ The Westminster Budget (30 March, 1894 - p.29) Yet another attempt, it seems, is to be made to bring back good fortune to the Opéra Comique Theatre, from which it has so long been estranged. It is said that Mr. Robert Buchanan proposes to produce a new play of his own at this theatre under his own management. The author-manager, though a rarer bird than the actor-manager, is not an absolute stranger. To instance only the most recent example, Mr. Henry A. Jones, it will be remembered, was not long ago his own manager at the Avenue Theatre. ___ The Entr’acte (31 March, 1894 - p.5) Mr. Robert Buchanan is to make an experiment as a caterer at the Opéra Comique, and I hope he will come out a “Lucky Bob.” His lady star will be Mrs. Langtry. In my great ignorance and prophetic shortsightedness, I was under the impression that we had seen the last of this famous lady as an actress, but it seems we are to have another Langtry boom, and I hope for the sake of everybody concerned that it may prove profitable. I certainly should have better hopes of it, if it had pitched its tent at a more westerly and less subterranean theatre, but possibly any drawbacks of situation and level may be rendered nugatory by the personality of the lady who has been secured to play “lead.” Whether Mrs. Langtry has herself put any money in the venture, deponent knoweth not. (p.9)


	The Penny Illustrated Paper (31 March, 1894)

Mrs. Langtry, who is about to re-appear in a play by Mr. Robert Buchanan at the Opéra Comique in London, though she has passed that trying age of forty, is still a beautiful woman. Her father, the Rev. W. C. Le Breton, was the Dean of Jersey, and hence her nickname in later years, “the Jersey Lily.” She was born in 1853, and married in 1875, Mr. Langtry, a member of the diplomatic service, who is now a quiet country gentleman in the Midlands. Soon after her marriage, Mrs. Langtry became a prominent society woman. She was the first of “the professional beauties,” and all London swarmed with her photographs. In 1881 she decided to go on the stage, obtaining much advice and assistance from Mrs. Henry Labouchere, who, as Miss Henrietta Hodson, has been an actress of mark. Mrs. Langtry first appeared as Kate Hardcastle in “She Stoops to Conquer” at the Haymarket. She toured in America, and accumulated, it is said, a large fortune, partly invested in an American cattle ranche. Mrs. Langtry has been yachting in the Mediterranean, and been seen at the last Covent Garden Fancy Dress Ball.

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The Glasgow Herald (2 April, 1894 - p.9)

Mr Robert Buchanan has now signed the lease of the Opera Comique, where, as soon as possible after next Saturday, when his tenancy begins, he will produce a play of his own, which in due course will be followed by one from the pen of Mr Christie Murray. In Mr Buchanan’s piece Mrs Langtry will take the principal part. It is said that she will be paid the very high salary of £100 a week, £800 being deposited in advance.

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The Coventry Herald and Free Press (6 April, 1894 - p.3)

LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.
MR. BUCHANAN AND HIS PLAYS.

It is pretty well known that Mr. Robert Buchanan has been for some time looking out for a theatre in which to produce his own and other plays. He has at last closed with the proprietors of the Opera Comique, and the rent for the first month (£260) has been paid. It is reported that Mrs. Langtry has been secured by the Bard for leading lady, and it is even said, though this must be accepted with a liberal allowance of salt, that the Jersey Lily will receive a salary of £100 per week.

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Manitoba Morning Free Press (7 April, 1894 - p.5)

Mrs. Langtry is likely soon to reappear on the London stage. Robert Buchanan has engaged her for a new venture he has in hand. Desirous of becoming a manager on his own account, he has taken the Opera Comique theatre with the intention of producing an adaption of one of his own novels and also a new work by David Christie Murray, the novelist. Mrs. Langtry will play in these pieces.

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Northern Daily Mail (7 April, 1894 - p.6)

MY DRAMATIC TRAWL-NET.

. . .

The new play with which Mr Robert Buchanan will start business shortly at the Opéra Comique is by R. B. and Mr Henry Murray. It is in four acts, and deals entirely with English fashionable life. In this Mrs Langtry will make her reappearance on the London stage.

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The Birmingham Daily Post (7 April, 1894 - p.7)

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The Dundee Evening Telegraph (9 April, 1894 - p.2)

Rumour says that Mrs Langtry’s agreement to appear as leading lady during Mr Robert Buchanan’s season at the Opera Comique provided for a weekly payment of £80. Does any other actress draw so large a salary?

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Advertiser for Somerset (12 April, 1894 - p.7)

MRS. LANGTRY’S SALARY.—Mrs. Langtry, Figaro states, will be paid the tolerably handsome salary of £100 a week (eight weeks being guaranteed and paid in advance) as leading actress in Mr. Robert Buchanan’s new enterprise at the Opera Comique. Out of this sum, however, the Jersey Lily provides her own dresses, which, on the signing of the contract last Thursday, she forthwith ordered from Worth, of Paris. On the other hand, the Evening News and Post says Mrs. Langtry does not join Mr. Robert Buchanan at the Opera Comique. She has, according to this authority, arranged to appear in about a fortnight at the Royalty with Mr. Charles Hawtrey.

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The Nottingham Evening Post (16 April, 1894 - p.2)

MRS. LANGTRY’S NEW PLAY.

The title of the new play, in which Mrs. Langtry is to exhibit her talent, her personal attractions, and her new gowns at the Opera Comique is, we understand, not yet definitely settled. Titles rarely are till the question of whether there are prior claims has been settled. At present Mr. Robert Buchanan and his collaborator, Mr. Henry Murray, incline to entomological labellings for their four acts, which are to be distinguished respectively as “The Chrysalis,” “Wings Expanding,” “The Butterfly,” “Folded Wings.”

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The Taunton Courier (18 April, 1894 - p.2)

MRS. LANGTRY, long absent from this country, will appear as leading lady during Mr. Robert Buchanan’s season at the Opera Comique for a weekly payment of £80. Does any actress draw so large a salary? There are several actors in receipt of more. In one case an actor receives £120 a week (Arthur Roberts to wit), and there are several who receive £100. It is curious that a successful actor should command a larger salary than a successful actress, but such is the case.

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The Stage (19 April, 1894 - p.11)

It has not been definitely settled what the title of the new play by Robert Buchanan and H. Murray, to be produced at the Opera Comique, shall be. There is at present some idea of calling it A Society Butterfly, a title which should fairly well meet the requirements of the plot, as far as I know it. However, the theatre will be opened with this piece on or about Thursday, May 3, and in the cast you will find Mrs. Langtry, Miss Rose Leclercq, Miss Eva Williams, Mr. Fred Kerr, Mr. C. P. Little, Mr. Charles Stuart, Mr. C. Mowbray (stage-manager), and, possibly, Mr. W. Herbert. The piece is in five acts, and is an up-to-date comedy. Miss Leclercq will appear as a sporting Duchess, and Mrs. Langtry will be the Butterfly. In one act the Jersey Lily will be found clad as a Grecian goddess, taking part in private theatricals. Rehearsals have been started, and all appears to be shaping well.

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The Westminster Budget (20 April, 1894 - p.26)

There is no foundation for the report that Mrs. Langtry will appear at the Opera Comique in the new play by Mr. Robert Buchanan, which the dramatist will produce at that theatre under his own management. She will make her rentrée at the Royalty Theatre, which will reopen shortly under the management of Mr. Charles Hawtrey. Mrs. Langtry, who has not been seen on the stage for some time, has lately, we understand, refused a handsome offer from the management of the Empire Theatre, who wished to secure her services for their tableaux-vivants. Her next appearance will be in light comedy.

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The Echo (20 April, 1894 - p.1)

THEATRICAL GOSSIP.
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The Opera Comique is to open on or about the 3rd prox. with a new play by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray, entitled, it is most likely, The Society Butterfly, in which Mrs. Langtry will take the lead. The lintels of the theatre are already billed with announcements of Mrs. Langtry’s re-appearance.

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The Glasgow Herald (23 April, 1894 - p.9)

The new piece by Mr H. Murray and himself, with which Mr Robert Buchanan will reopen the Opera Comique on May 5, has now been christened “The Society Butterfly,” and, despite conflicting reports, the part of the “Butterfly” will be created by Mrs Langtry, who in the second act will appear as Venus in some society tableaux-vivants supposed to be given in the drawing-room of a lady of title. Another character is that of a horse-racing duchess, a part which will suit Miss Rose Leclercq admirably.

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The Echo (24 April, 1894 - p.1)

Despite sundry rumours about a migration to the Princess’s, Mr. Robert Buchanan will abide by his original choice of a theatre and will open the Opera Comique in about three weeks’ time with the new Society comedy which he has written in collaboration with Mr. Henry Murray, brother of the better-known novelist, Mr. David Christie Murray. The title, though hardly finally fixed upon, will probably be A Society Butterfly. Experienced playgoers will probably be able to gather some notion of the drift of the story from the subtitles with which the authors have supplied each of the acts. They are “The Chrysalis,” “Wings Expanding,” “The Butterfly,” and “Folding Wings.” Mrs. Langtry will, of course, appear as the heroine, and the cast will also include Miss Rose Leclerq and Mr. William Herbert.

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The Stage (3 May, 1894 - p.11)

Next Thursday evening the Opera Comique will be opened with the production of Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray’s new four-act comedy of modern life, called A Society Butterfly. The cast will be as follows:—Mr. Charles Dudley, Mr. William Herbert; Dr. Coppee, Mr. Allan Beaumont; Captain Belton, Mr. F. Kerr; Lord Augustus Leith, Mr. Edward Rose; Major Craigeldie, Mr. Henry J. Carvill; Lord Ventnor, Mr. S. Jerram; Herr Max, Mr. Templeton; Bangle, Mr. Chas. R. Stuart; the Duchess of Newhaven, Miss Rose Leclercq; Lady Milwood, Miss Walsingham; Hon. Mrs. Stanley, Miss Lyddie Morand; Mrs. Courtlandt Parke, Miss E. B. Sheridan; Miss Staten, Miss Ethel Norton; Rose, Miss Eva Williams; Marsh, Miss Eva Vernon; Mrs. Dudley, Mrs. Langtry. At one portion of the play, as I have already told you, private theatricals will be indulged in. This scene the authors have termed an “Intermezzo.” The cast of characters in this will be:—Queen of Heaven, Miss Walsingham; Pallas (Goddess of Wisdom), Miss Lyddie Morand; Œnone, Miss Gladys Evisson; Paris, Mr. F. Kerr; Aphrodite (Goddess of Love), Mrs. Langtry. The first act of A Society Butterfly is supposed to take place in Mrs. Courtlandt Parke’s bungalow on the banks for the Thames, and is called “The Chysalis”; the second at Dudley’s House, Belgravia, is termed “Wings Expanding”; the third, in the Duchess of Newhaven’s drawing-room, bears the title “The Butterfly”; and the fourth, at Dudley’s House again, is known as “Folded Wings.” All these headings to the different acts will sufficiently indicate the progress and state of the principal lady character in the piece. Mr. William Sidney is looking after the stage management. Mr. John Phipps has been appointed secretary of the theatre, and the business-management is in the hands of Mr. Frederick Stanley.

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The Sheffield Daily Telegraph (4 May, 1894 - p.4)

MATTERS THEATRICAL.

The last performances of that admirably-mounted but motiveless play, “Mrs. Lessingham,” are now announced at the Garrick. It will be substituted on the 19th by the revival of the celebrated Haymarket comedy, “Money.” In this Mrs. Bancroft will make a welcome reappearance on the stage. Her entrance now into the stalls of any theatre is most boisterously applauded by the audiences. On Monday next we shall see Mrs. Langtry at the Opera Comique in Mr. Robert Buchanan’s and Mr. Henry Murray’s new comedy, “A Society Butterfly.” Unfortunately this day clashes with the commencement of Eleanora Duse’s season at Daly’s. The great Italian actress is sure to draw a fashionable crowd. I am informed that the company she is bringing over is vastly superior to the one which accompanied her last year. A verbatim report of all plays performed will also be on sale in the theatre to assist the audience in following the dialogue.

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Reynolds’s Newspaper (6 May, 1894 - p.6)

Owing to Signora Duse’s reappearance in London having been fixed for Monday next, the production of Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray’s comedy, “A Society Butterfly,” has been postponed until Thursday, May 10.

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The Times (11 May, 1894 - p.5)

OPERA COMIQUE THEATRE.

Mrs. Langtry made one of her occasional appearances as an actress, last night, at the Opera Comique in a play entitled A Society Butterfly, which appears to have been expressly written for her by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray. The motive of the play is simplicity itself. A young wife, who has been reading Dumas’ “Francillon,” is advised to pay out her husband for his attentions to another woman. Accordingly, she “goes the pace” in “smart society” under the protection of a horsey duchess, who at heart is anxious for her welfare. She is to be seen everywhere, takes part in private theatricals and tableaux vivants, and has her name compromisingly coupled with that of a raffish army officer, technically known as a “wrong ‘un.” Upon the husband, who for his part has been compromising himself with an American widow, these tactics have the desired effect, and the curtain is brought down upon a scene of conjugal reconciliation. the play went to pieces in the third act, where a variety entertainment is given in the form of a scene within a scene for the purpose of enabling Mrs. Langtry to appear in a pose plastique. Ominous murmurs of dissatisfaction were heard from the popular parts of the house, and as the fourth act was necessarily of a merely explanatory character, the same discontent was manifested at the fall of the curtain. Mrs. Langtry’s somewhat intermittent attention to the stage has not tended to her improvement as an actress; but en revanche her gowns and her diamonds are magnificent. The best acting in the piece is that of Miss Rose Leclercq as the Newmarket duchess with a copious vocabulary of racing slang: but Mr. F. Kerr, Mr. Edward Rose, and Mr. William Herbert furnish agreeable though conventional “Society” types, and there is, generally, an ample and well-attired personnel operating on a well-appointed stage.

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Mlle. Jane May, who has won some reputation in London as an exponent of wordless play, presented a new pantomime last night at the Tivoli. The title of this, Mr. Galatea, is sufficiently explanatory. A statue comes to life, falls in love with a fellow-statue, and breaks it in his embrace, and is then condemned to remount his pedestal and be changed into stone again. The little story is prettily told in dumb show. Mlle. Jane May concludes her performance by giving realistic imitations of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt.

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The Echo (11 May, 1894 - p.2)

OPERA COMIQUE.
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Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Henry Murray are both clever men, but they cannot be congratulated on the success of their joint attempt last night to write up to Mrs. Langtry’s new frocks. They would probably have done better to have fitted their client with a more biographical narrative. A Society Butterfly, their new play, is not novel in theme. Mrs. Dudley, a young wife, is the best of her sex, and loves her husband dearly, but she finds him flirting with another woman, and is unhappy. The Duchess comes and advises her to treat her husband as he treats her; to seek her own pleasure and leave him to his own devices. She acts on this old recipe for rekindling love by awakening jealousy, and throwing over the joys of domesticity plunges into the vortex of social follies, and becomes the reigning Society beauty of the season, flirting the while with an early flame, Captain Belton. In the course of her social frivolities she appears in a set of tableaux vivants, given at the Duchess’s house. About these living pictures expectation ran high. People came with their nerves steeled against being shocked; but their heroic resolution was not put to the test. “The Judgment of Paris,” “Lady Godiva,” and As You Like It, sound risky, but in the deed they were as decorous as a provincial bazaar side-show, and not much more interesting. Mrs. Dudley having decided to leave her husband, informs Captain Belton of the fact. The Captain is embarrassed. he is very fond of the lady, and quite willing to indulge in what the French call le partage, but throwing up his pleasant life in London and his commission in the Army, and bolting to an unknown land practically without money, are quite different matters. Mildly disgusted at discovering the pusillanimous nature of the man with whom she has been so intimately associated, poor Beauty decides to make it up with her husband; and a very tame scene of mutual forgiveness brings a play which is tedious to a degree to a welcome close. Mrs. Langtry wore four distinct dresses, to say nothing of tableaux vivants costumes, and three of them were of great splendour, the last, a gown of plain satin of the faintest imaginable yellow, being of such beauty as to partly compensate for the dreariness of what had gone before. Beauty, however, cannot garb itself in splendour in a hurry, and the waits between the four frocks which constituted the better part of the entertainment were trying to the patience of the gallery boy. It is not difficult to conjecture on what well-known lady of Society the part of the stable-talking Duchess played by Miss Rose Leclercq is based; but, listening to the Turfy phrases, not always correct, which characterise every utterance from her mouth, we could not help remembering how, with half the material and ten times the success, Mr. Pinero had painted her forerunner George Tid of Dandy Dick. There is little need to enter into detailed criticism of the acting, except to say that Mr. Edward Rose was humorous as a literary and aristocratic young booby with a taste for classic play-writing. The house was packed to its extreme limits with exceedingly smart men and women, but many a stall was vacant before the end came, and the authors, who resolved to appear to a call of their names, had [...] reason to rejoice in their temerity.

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The Daily News (11 May, 1894)

THE DRAMA.
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A SOCIETY BUTTERFLY.

The new comedy of modern life, by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Henry Murray, in which Mrs. Langtry made her appearance for the first time this season at the Opera Comique last night, might fairly have been expected to enjoy more favour than it secured at the hands of a rather turbulent section of the audience; for it presented few ideas, and even very few incidents, which have not already proved their power—some, indeed, many times over—to entertain the public. There were reminiscences of “Frou-Frou,” of “Francillon,” of “Un Mari dans du Colon,” and at least half-a-dozen other popular pieces, not to speak of a “variety entertainment” supposed to be given at the house of a sporting duchess, or of that latest of revived fashions—an exhibition of living tableaux. With all these advantages, however, “A Society Butterfly” manifestly wearied the spectators, and as the curtain fell some rather determined expressions of dissatisfaction, mingling with less determined applause, gave rise to a somewhat unusual scene. There were, as is usual on such occasions, calls for the authors, which were obviously not of an entirely friendly kind. Nevertheless, Mr. Buchanan and his coadjutor made their appearance before the curtain, and the former, irritated apparently by the yells and booings which their presence provoked, deliberately put on his spectacles to survey the disturbers. Then, placing his fingers to his lips, and looking upward in the direction of the gallery, Mr. Buchanan went through the gesture which is known as “wafting a kiss,” whereupon he and his companion retired. The story of the new play, though it is extended over four acts, occupying three hours, sets forth nothing less simple than a matrimonial tiff, which ends in a renewal of love. Mrs. Dudley, a vicar’s decorous and pretty daughter, has discovered that her husband flirts with Mrs. Courtlandt Parke, a fascinating American widow, who has a villa on the banks of the Thames, and she has overheard him complain of her humdrum ways. Therefore Mrs. Dudley claims an equal right to go what is known as “the pace,” and forthwith the quiet lady of the first act blossoms into the society beauty, wears magnificent dresses, decorates herself with costly jewels, frequents the houses of noble dames of gay and easy manners, and flirts so desperately with a military officer that her husband’s worst suspicions are aroused. The scheme of the play, however, is too simple and obvious for the elaborate treatment. Mrs. Langtry’s dresses and diamonds were greatly admired, but her long speech on the thesis of equal liberty for the two sexes awakened little interest, and the pathos of her wounded pride and unrequited affection failed to touch a chord in the heart of the spectator. Mr. William Herbert was even less successful as the husband, though it must be confessed that it is not easy to see how more could be done with the part of this weak and hesitating person, whose frequent commands and warnings to his wilful wife are so ludicrously ineffective. Miss Leclercq, on the other hand, in the character of the Duchess, whose sporting metaphors are as profuse as Commodore Trunnion’s sea phrases, aroused hearty laughter. The new piece is brilliantly mounted, and the company, which includes Mr. F. Kerr, Mr. Allan Beaumont, Mr. Edward Rose, and other capable performers, is worthy of better employment for its talents than it found last night.

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The Standard (11 May, 1894 - p.3)

OPERA COMIQUE THEATRE.
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A Society Butterfly, by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray, announced as “a new and original comedy of modern life,” proves on inspection to be an old and sadly-worn comedy dealing essentially with the life of the stage, crudely constructed, feebly written, and ill-acted. The story is neither true to life nor effective for the boards. A sort of far-away attempt is made to argue the ethical contention that man and woman are subject to equal laws, that what is wrong in the one is wrong in the other; but, as no one has ever seriously denied this—off the stage—no good purposes is served by the argument, particularly as it is set forth in such very unconvincing fashion. The “society butterfly” is Mrs. Dudley. She had been the most devoted of wives until she found that her husband was bored with the oppressive atmosphere of domesticity with which she pervaded him, and that he was seeking relief and contrast by making violent love to Mrs. Courtlandt Parke, a rather vulgar woman, who lives on the banks of the Thames, and fitfully cultivates an American accent. The hitherto model Mrs. Dudley calls on this lady to expostulate, but she meets at the house an absolutely impossible Duchess, who advises her to retaliate on her husband by setting up love affairs of her own. All this, of course, is as old as fiction; and though age is no detriment to a powerful story, if treated with strength and some approach to originality of detail—for human nature remains what it always was, and certain complications which continually recur must always have their point and significance—A Society Butterfly is very far indeed from fulfilling any of the requirements of a modern drama. The most novel scenes in it, indeed, are those which are borrowed from Frou Frou. Incidentally, it may be remarked that the sporting metaphors and similes with which the Duchess of Newhaven so copiously interlards her conversation are such as could never, by any possibility, have been used by a woman who had—as the Duchess is understood to have—some acquaintance with racing affairs. Her expressions are, apparently, borrowed from the works of female novelists who have no knowledge of the subject they discuss; and it is not a little sad to find so capable an actress as Miss Rose Leclercq doomed to fill such a part as that here provided for her. If Dudley cared for his wife, he would not have paid such exceedingly compromising visits to Mrs. Courtlandt Parke; but, in truth, the theme as presented is so little worth argument that controversial comment would be unprofitable. To describe the attitude of an audience is not to criticise a play; but there are plays which do not call for criticism, which are merely direct appeals to audiences for thoughtless applause, and with regard to which, therefore, the reception is everything; and it must consequently be observed that as A Society Butterfly was evolved a tendency to derision was manifested. The earnestness and manly bearing of Mr. William Herbert as Dudley failed to make the character convincing. Mr. Kerr gave a very shadowy performance of a Captain in the Guards who endeavours to beguile Mrs. Dudley from the path of duty. Mrs. Langtry was the heroine.

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The Daily Chronicle (11 May, 1894 - p.8)

“A SOCIETY BUTTERFLY” AT THE OPERA COMIQUE.

In their “new and original comedy of modern life,” called “A Society Butterfly,” in which Mrs. Langtry last night reappeared, it is difficult to say whether Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray intended to be in earnest or were solely desirous of making fun of fashionable society. Accepting the former view, their story is too thin and commonplace to arouse much interest; taking the latter to be their purpose the satire is heavy and clumsy. Perhaps they hoped to combine the elements of present-day romances with parody, in which case it must be said that the two do not go well together. There is some smart dialogue in the piece, but in default of a strong story it fails to prove of material value to the production. Charles Dudley, a wealthy pleasure-seeker, temporarily tires of his wife because she is domesticated. In revenge she goes to the other extreme, and a separation between the pair is only avoided by mutual explanations. The Duchess of Newhaven, who is more horsey in her talk than was the Dean’s sister in Mr. Pinero’s “Dandy Dick,” entertains her guests one evening with a music-hall program, in the course of which Mrs. Dudley—represented by Mrs. Langtry—appears in a tableaux of “The Judgment of Paris,” and is afterwards seen alone under an archway in an attitude suggestive of Lady Godiva leaving her abode for the memorable journey through Coventry. This, at least, was the idea of some among the audience last night. The “living pictures” and the music-hall illusions were, however, deemed disappointing, and the third act closed amid uncomplimentary manifestations. In the final part, Mrs. Langtry, gradually rising to the height of the situation, was applauded for her illustration of the distress of Mrs. Dudley, b ut the chief honours as regards acting fell to Miss Rose Leclercq during her embodiment of the slangy Duchess. Mr. W. Herbert was the husband, and Mr. F. Kerr a fashionable and selfish idler. The authors courageously appeared at the end of the play when summoned, and the hostile attitude of the “gods” did not seem in the least disconcerting to Mr. Buchanan.

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Glasgow Herald (11 May, 1894)

A CLUMSILY driven van yesterday very nearly caused a postponement of Mr Robt. Buchanan’s new play this evening. Mrs Langtry was being driven down St Martin’s Lane to the final rehearsal when the van “poled” her carriage. Mrs Langtry was thrown forward, and thus just escaped being struck by the pole. The actress was a little frightened, but otherwise escaped unhurt. The audience attracted this evening to the first performance of Messrs Buchanan and Murray’s long-expected new play, “The Society Butterfly,” must have been an agreeable experience to the Opera- Comique, and it, indeed, almost recalled a Lyceum first night. Society, in fact, was very strongly represented, as well as ordinary first-night goers, for Mrs. Langtry was now to play the chief part in a new society piece, so that the stalls were quite insufficient for the demand for places, and some of the best people were to be found in the dress circle. The story of “A Society Butterfly” is very English, and practically all the characters, some exaggeration apart, might almost have been drawn from the thoughtless “society” men and women of the period. Charles Dudley, the husband of the piece, is a very thoughtless personage, and his flirtations with Mrs Courtlandt Parke have became so very pronounced that the Duchess of Newhaven advised his wife to give him a Roland for an Oliver. She does so with a vengeance, and becomes a society butterfly. She flirts so outrageously with all the men that her husband resolves on a separation. This sort of thing will, however, by no means suit Mrs Dudley, and rather than be left in London she entreats a young exquisite, Captain Belton, to elope with her. This cool suggestion is refused, for the Captain is threatened by his aunt with a stoppage of the money for his tailor’s bills if there is any esclandre, so that eventually the good-natured duchess is enabled to bring about a reconciliation between husband and wife. One of the principal scenes of the piece is an evening party in the duchess’s drawing-room, where Mrs. Langtry first acts the part of Aphrodite in some private theatricals, and afterwards takes part in some society tableaux vivants, the stage being darkened, and Mrs. Langtry appearing as Lady Godiva, recalling the well-known picture. This scene was, however, not very well received by the audience. The play, nevertheless, was on the whole well acted, and it was magnificently mounted. Indeed the ladies’ costumes are likely to become a genuine nine days’ wonder.

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St. James’s Gazette (11 May, 1894 - p.12)

THE THEATRES.

“A SOCIETY BUTTERFLY” AT THE OPERA COMIQUE.

MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN and Mr. Henry Murray are gentlemen deserving of the deepest sympathy. They have been inspired by a great idea—a noble purpose; but, like so many pioneers in the field of thought, they find the world, or so much of it as could be conveniently lodged in the Opéra Comique Theatre last night, not yet ripe to appreciate their efforts. Shrewd observers of their own time, they have watched the music-halls gradually, but surely, invade the domain of the theatre, and suddenly it has occurred to them, Why not endeavour to turn the tables? Why not write a play—a serious play—which shall be as instructive as “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray” and yet contain all the attractions of an entertainment at the Empire or the Palace? If the public is prepared to accept forty-minute sketches and compressed melodramas at the “Halls,” would it not with equal readiness welcome “living pictures” and imitations of popular actors in a piece of serious interest at the theatre?
In this way, we assume, “A Society Butterfly” came to be written. Unfortunately, the result of the venture can hardly be said quite to have fulfilled expectation. “You must not pump spring water unawares upon a gracious public full of nerves,” once wrote Mrs. Browning; and apparently the nerves of last night’s audience at the Opéra Comique were hardly prepared for the cold douche administered to them. Where the listeners ought to have laughed they preserved a gloomy silence; where they should have shed tears irreverent sounds were only too audible.
Under the circumstances it is scarcely necessary to relate in detail the story unfolded in “A Society Butterfly.” Nor need the omission be regretted, seeing that the same tale has been told again and again by other playwrights and novelists. This, of course, is in no way to the discredit of Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. henry Murray, who had evidently judged, and wisely judged, that it would be imprudent to imperil the success of their experiment by burdening it with originality or novelty of plot. So, as it happens, they have merely taken the ordinary conventional stage types of the silly husband with a tendency to run after a pretty face, the hysterical wife possessed of a desire to play with fire, the designing captain whose fascinating manners are always irresistible up to a certain point. To these must be added two friends, male and female, whose mission it is to bring husband and wife together when the moment arrives for the final descent of the curtain. Society itself is abundantly represented by a number of aristocratic nobodies, who play at getting up “living pictures” and variety entertainments, and who squander their petty wit upon subjects they are incapable of appreciating. In sober earnestness, it is indeed difficult to condone the bad taste displayed by the authors in attacking work the superiority of which to their own is so clearly marked. But throughout the entire piece, alike in thought, sentiment, and tone, can be traced a vein of vulgarity altogether repugnant to good feeling. For the rest it is sufficient to say that the impressions of the audience respecting the quality of the performance were made evident at an early stage of the evening, and that nothing occurred in the later acts to change or even to modify these opinions. As a sporting duchess, Miss Rose Leclercq lent life and animation to the play whenever she appeared; while Mr. Fred Kerr, cool, easy, and self-possessed, was admirable as the would-be seducer. Mr. William Herbert played carefully and well the thankless part of the foolish husband; while Mr. Allan Beaumont, Mr. Edward Rose, and Miss E. B. Sheridan were seen to advantage in minor rôles. As the misguided wife, Mrs. Langtry appeared in a succession of wonderful gowns, but her acting showed little of the requisite power or passion. The piece was well “dressed,” and so were the actresses; but that is not quite enough to secure success.

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The Daily Telegraph (11 May, 1894 - p.6)

An English audience borrowed last night from America what is in certain given circumstances a very courteous and desirable custom. The play presented to their notice was called “A Society Butterfly,” and it was announced as written by Mr. Henry Murray, but chiefly by Mr. Robert Buchanan, a man of letters, who has in his time given the stage some excellent literary and dramatic work. The company contained the names of Mrs. Langtry and of many artists who are deservedly held in respect. But the play proved to be wholly without interest, and the players could not, with all their superhuman efforts, lift it from the dangerous edge of a precipice called ridicule. So this very courteous and considerate audience did not hiss the play or linger too long on its unfortunate social solecisms, or treat with scorn incidents and interludes that failed purely from want of judgment and experienced knowledge of the stage. Not desiring to be harsh to Mr. Robert Buchanan or rude to Mrs. Langtry and her brothers and sisters in affliction, the wearied playgoers simply went out. They folded their seats in depression and silently stole away. There was no fuss, no fury, no gibes, no catcalls; the audience merely melted and disappeared. And it is to be gravely feared that, in spite of the dresses—so well advertised—and the music-hall programme—so badly imitated—that the play—the poor play—will follow the lead of the audience. It will not fizzle or splutter, or grow hot or cold, or die down in a fiery glow, or create discord or discussion. Its destiny is sealed. It will simply go out.

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The Sheffield Evening Telegraph and Star (11 May, 1894 - p.3)

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray cannot be congratulated upon their comedy of modern life, “A Social Butterfly,” which was produced last night at the Opera Comique with Mrs. Langtry in the principal part. The work is dull and amateurish. The main object seemed to have been to introduce some “tableaux vivants” for Mrs. Langtry to appear in. The lady undoubtedly looks very handsome in pale pink classic robes as Aphrodite, but this does not suffice for an evening’s entertainment, and the play itself is wearying. It was well played, Mrs. Langtry showing some power as the lady who becomes a society butterfly in order to punish her husband for his partiality for another woman.

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The Edinburgh Evening News (11 May, 1894 - p.4)

MRS LANGTRY IN “THE SOCIETY BUTTERFLY.”—There was a large attendance of society people at the Opera Comique, London, last evening, to witness the rentree of Mrs Langtry into theatrical life under the management of Mr Robert Buchanan. There was a new play for the occasion, “The Society Butterfly,” written by Messrs Buchanan and Murray. In a scene representing private theatricals, Mrs Langtry posed as Aphrodite and Lady Godiva. Previous to the performance, while Mrs Langtry’s carriage was going to the theatre, a van collided with the carriage, one of the van shafts going through it. Mrs Langtry, however, escaped injury.

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The New York Times (11 May, 1894)

Mrs. Langtry Has Aged.

LONDON, May 10.—Mrs. Langtry reappeared on the stage this evening in Buchanan and Murray’s “A Society Butterfly,” at the Opera Comique. She had the leading part, and did satisfactory work, although the organized gallery claque treated her badly. She has aged rapidly since her last public appearance. She was fairly supported.
The piece was well staged, and probably will be successful. This evening it was injured by a stupid intermezzo of living pictures. The authors were called before the curtain.

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The Era (12 May, 1894)

THE OPERA COMIQUE.
On Thursday, May 10th, for the First Time,
a New and Original Comedy of Modern Life,
by Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray, entitled
“A SOCIETY BUTTERFLY.”

Mr Charles Dudley ... ... Mr WILLIAM HERBERT
Dr. Coppée ... ... Mr ALLAN BEAUMONT
Captain Belton ... ... Mr F. KERR
Lord Augustus Leith ... ... Mr EDWARD ROSE
Major Craigeldie ... ... Mr HENRY J. CARVILL
Lord Ventnor ... ... Mr S. JERRAM
Herr Max ... ... Mr H. TEMPLETON
Bangle ... ... Mr CHAS. R. STUART
The Duchess of Newhaven ... Miss ROSE LECLERCQ
Lady Milwood ... ... Miss WALSINGHAM
The Hon. Mrs. Stanley ... Miss LYDDIE MORAND
Mrs. Courtlandt Parke ... ... Miss E. B. SHERIDAN
Miss Staten ... ... Miss ETHEL NORTON
Rose ... ... Miss EVA WILLIAMS
Marsh ... ... Miss EVA VERNON
Mrs. Dudley ... ... Mrs LANGTRY

CHARACTERS IN THE INTERMEZZO.

Hera ... ... Miss WALSINGHAM
Pallas ... ... Miss LYDDIE MORAND
Œnone ... ... Miss GLADYS EVISSON
Paris ... ... Mr F. KERR
Aphrodite ... ... Mrs LANGTRY

   “When the husband steadily goes wrong, what line shall the wife take?” Allow him to very nearly be assassinated, and then relent and save his life: that will cure him, says M. Dumas the Younger, in La Princesse Georges. Institute a domestic divorce de thoro—and keep it up, says M. Emile Augier, in Le Gendre de M. Poirier. The authors of A Society Butterfly, prescribe a rush into the giddy whirl of modern society. Stay out late at night, be interviewed in the ladies’ papers, and put your spouse in the position of “Mrs Somebody’s husband.” By taking a lover and putting him severely to the test you—the wife—will soon discover that, if one man is faithless, all are ignoble; and, as a pis aller, you will return to your lawful spouse. He, by that time, will have got tired of his Siren, and will long for his night’s rest; and your social success will also have titillated his vanity of proprietorship. Having each of you had your lesson, you will settle down cheerfully to a Darby and Joan existence.
   This not unpromising idea was worked out by Mr Buchanan and Mr Henry Murray, at the Opera Comique Theatre, on Thursday with a clumsiness and an ineptitude which resulted in melancholy failure. In the first act of A Society Butterfly we find that Mr Charles Dudley has started a strong flirtation with a certain fascinating American, Mrs Courtlandt Parke. Mrs Dudley comes with some friends to visit Mrs Parke, and , concealed in an arbour, beholds her husband walking about the garden with his arm round Mrs Parke’s waist. As Dudley’s indifference to his wife is confessedly attributable to his weariness of Mrs Dudley’s domestic virtues, she resolves to abandon them and “go the pace.” She starts for Kempton with this intention, and the curtain falls on the first act. In the second, which takes place in Dudley’s house in Belgravia, we find that Mrs D. has taken the plunge, and has become what used to be called a Fashionable Beauty. Interviewers call on her, photographers come to “take” her rooms, and a certain Captain Belton is her devoted admirer. They rehearse a Greek play in a scene which is not the less amusing because it reminds us of the amateur rehearsal in Frou-Frou. Dudley tries to recover his wife’s affection, but she is obdurate. In the third act we see her again in the “giddy whirl” of smart society. The upper ten in Mr Buchanan’s play do their whirling sadly, the dissipation in the Duchess of Newhaven’s drawing-room consisting in some very ordinary and proper tableaux vivants and a mild amateur variety entertainment. After further fencing between Siren and spouse, husband and wife, and wife and lover, Mrs Dudley forms a living picture in a mediæval costume, suggestive of Lady Macbeth in a blanket, and the curtain falls again. In the last act Mrs Dudley, whom jealousy has driven to desperation, is ready to elope with Captain Belton, and the Duchess, realising her protegee’s mental state, perfidiously urges Belton to fly with Mrs Dudley to some distant solitude. But this would not suit the Captain at all. He has little to live on but his pay, and he does not “see the fun” of exiling himself from London and society. So, when Mrs Dudley says, in effect, “take me to the Pacific Islands, and I am yours!” he respectfully but firmly declines. With her eyes opened to the real inwardness of the average lover, Mrs D. returns to her husband’s arms, and they swear eternal fidelity.
   The best thing in the piece is the ironic scene in the last act, which is very fair comedy, and is neatly and naturally written. The rest of the play is lifeless, clumsy, and unconvincing. It is a dangerous thing to disappoint an audience; and— after stimulating public expectation of something “shocking” by every means in their power, even going so far as to utilise the good old joke, which we must own wears remarkably well, of bringing on a diminutive box supposed to contain an immodestly scanty costume, and by verbal jests not remarkable for refinement—to create an anti-climax by the appearance of the heroine in a melodramatic attitude and a mediæval dress was, to say the least, injudicious on the part of Mr Robert Buchanan and Mr Henry Murray. The Duchess of Newhaven’s remarks about “there being so very little of” Mrs Langtry’s Greek robes were pointless as applied to a dress which was particularly decent; and the Duchess herself was impossibly, incredibly slangy. No one could be so “horsey” as that and live. But it is needless to criticise A Society Butterfly in detail. Utter weariness and a keen sense of unreality were the deeper impressions made on us by the entertainment, and the groans and interruptions of a very unruly gallery were not without excuse.
   With such material no cast could do much, and the work of criticising the acting in A Society Butterfly may well be performed perfunctorily. Mr William Herbert endeavoured, not without success, to put life into that irritating individual Mr Charles Dudley. Mr Allan Beaumont played carefully and conscientiously the rôle of the “chorus” of the play, a certain Dr. Coppée. Mr F. Kerr’s quiet drollery was again valuable in the representation of Captain Belton, and he did all that was possible with the part. Mr Edward Rose enacted with rare and unctuous humour the rôle of Lord Augustus Leith, a mild and affected amateur dramatist, and at several critical junctures succeeded in restoring, by his quaint and amusing performance, the good temper of the irritated audience. Mr. Henry J. Carvill did some neat imitations of Mr Beerbohm-Tree and Mr Arthur Roberts in the third act. Miss Carlotta Leclercq rallied nobly to the side of the author, and fought a losing battle with unabated spirit to the very end. Even in the last act, when all was hopeless, Miss Leclercq’s efforts for a moment stemmed the tide of disapprobation. Miss E. B. Sheridan looked extremely pretty and acted with dainty expressiveness as Mrs Courtlandt Parke, and Miss Ethel Norton made a brisk lady journalist, Miss Eva Williams being efficient as a French servant. Mrs Langtry played the rather unsympathetic part of Mrs Dudley with spirit and energy, her delivery of a tirade in the second act evoking a spontaneous burst of applause. The tableaux from As You Like It were prettily arranged, some picturesque woodland scenery having been painted by Mr E. G. Banks, whose exterior and interiors were effective and appropriate. The classical and fancy costumes, designed by Karl, and made by Messrs Nathan, were dainty and decorous. We are informed that the proposed climax of the third act was the appearance of Mrs Langtry as Lady Godiva in the pink fleshings and close-fitting “shape” used in circus performances of the equestrian drama. Even if that lady had worn what Artemus Ward called the “skandalus costume of the Greek slaiv,” we doubt whether the sensation could have saved the piece.

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The Era (12 May, 1894)

THEATRICAL GOSSIP.
_____

. . .

THERE were many rumours to the effect that Mrs Langtry was to typify in a series of tableaux the career of a butterfly—the cocoon, the chrysalis, and the radiant insect full blown—as the climax of the third act of Messrs Buchanan and Murray’s play; and it would, we understand, be unfair to put these rumours to the credit of the inventive scribes of the daily press. Almost at the last moment, it is said, the dramatists came to the conclusion that a more dramatic effect could be obtained by “living pictures” of the story of Godiva, and on the instant dispatches were sent to Paris for what one cannot strictly call the “necessary” costumes. But why was Mrs Langtry, after all, wrapped up in a blue blanket?

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Birmingham Daily Post (12 May, 1894)

LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.
_____

LONDON, Friday Night.

. . .

The new venture at the Opera Comique, in which Mrs. Langtry appeared for the first time last night as the heroine of “A Society Butterfly,” a comedy by Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Henry Murray, does not promise prolonged success. The piece is reminiscent of various others with which the playgoer is familiar, “Frou Frou,” “Dandy Dick,” and even “After Dark” being suggested, while pointed mention is made in it of Dumas’s “Françillon” as in some degree furnishing a motive for the action of certain of the characters. The story is that of a young and beautiful wife who, feeling wronged by her husband, acts upon the principle that two blacks may assist to make a white, and goes as near to wrongdoing—in the endeavour to make her husband jealous and thus win back his love!—as it is discreetly possible to do, and in this curious and dangerous attempt she succeeds. The audience did not appear to consider the plot either probable or well worked out, though it showed much appreciation of the dialogue; but its patience was especially taxed by some singularly ineffective tableaux vivants which had been much talked of in advance, but which led to nothing. The best piece of acting was that of Miss Rose Leclercq as an impossible duchess, whose sporting slang would have been insufferably tedious if it had not been so artistically presented; while Mr. F. Kerr as a Guardsman of dishonourable tendencies played with his accustomed ease and effect.

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The Daily News (12 May, 1894)

“A SOCIETY BUTTERFLY.”
_____

MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN’S PROTEST.

   The Press Association says: After the performance of Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Henry Murray’s new play at the Opera Comique last night, the manager asked the audience not to leave their seats, as Mr. Buchanan wished to say a few words. Mr. Buchanan then came on the stage, and advancing to the footlights, said:
   Ladies and Gentlemen,—Before you leave the theatre, I wish, on behalf of myself and collaborator, to make a few remarks, if you will kindly pardon me. Most of you have possibly read the criticisms published in the morning journals. In this place you have, no doubt, judged for yourselves how far they are true and how far they may be untrue. We, as authors of the play, are perfectly indifferent to criticism—that is to say, when criticism is fair, but unfair and malignant criticism is quite another matter. I wish, if you will permit me, to read you a few lines published in “The Daily Telegraph” of this morning, written, I believe, by a gentleman possibly well known to you—Mr. Clement Scott. In the remarks I may have to make regarding the writer of this criticism I shall refer to my MS. in which I give my opinion of this gentleman, and a copy of which will be sent to him this evening, that there may be no misapprehension in the matter, “that the play proved to be wholly without interest, and the players could not, with all their superhuman efforts, lift it from the dangerous edge of a precipice called ridicule.” Well, Mr Buchanan proceeded, that is fair enough. It is a critical expression of judgment and opinion. “So this very courteous and considerate audience did not hiss the play or linger too long on its unfortunate social solecisms, or treat with scorn incidents and interludes that failed purely from want of judgment and experienced knowledge of the stage. Not desiring to be harsh to Mr Robert Buchanan or rude to Mrs Langtry and her brothers and sisters in affliction wearied playgoers simply went out. They folded their seats in depression, and silently stole away. There was no fuss, no fury, no gibes, no cat-calls; the audience merely melted and disappeared.” Now, ladies and gentlemen, my further remarks on that will be read to you and sent to Mr. Clement Scott, for what I have read to you is absolutely false. (An angry speech was here read.) The whole audience remained seated until the fall of the curtain, but in the upper part of the house there was the most unseemly demonstration that ever took place, even in a theatre. A cabal was there to insult and terrify a helpless woman. Throughout the play an attempt was made to twist every inherent reference into a personal imputation, and when the third act terminated weakly and feebly through a mishap, the cabal howled and hooted at the leading actress, who was in no way responsible for what had occurred.” After some further remarks, Mr Buchanan said, “You have now seen the play for yourselves, and we leave it for your good or your bad opinion.”
   Mr. Buchanan quitted the stage amidst loud and sustained cheers. Mr. Henry Murray remained behind, and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen,—I have no word to say except that I cordially endorse every word Mr. Buchanan has spoken.” Following on Mr. Murray’s withdrawal from the stage there were loud calls for Mrs. Langtry, who was received with much enthusiasm.

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The Star (12 May, 1894 - p.2)

“DELIRIUM TELEGRAPHS."

Mr. Buchanan Goes for Mr. Scott
Bald-headed at the Opera Comique.

Mr. Robert Buchanan did an extra turn at the Opera Comique last night in the rôle of the “Caledonian stern and wild.” The second night of a new play, writes a Star correspondent who was there, is not as a rule remarkably enlivening. After the excitement of the first performance the players show signs of a temporary reaction, and the audience is of the stop-gap paper order, for the regular play-goer does not begin in earnest until the third performance. Therefore, when last night I went to see for myself how true or untrue the remarkably unfavorable criticisms of “A Society Butterfly” might be, I little expected such a treat as was in store.
When the curtain fell on the reconciliation of Mrs. Langtry and Mr. Herbert, the authors of the piece, Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Murray, walked on. Mr. Buchanan was evidently excited, and his dress-coat bore unmistakable signs of having been in contact with a whitewashed wall. Mr. Murray looked like “I don’t want to fight, but by Jingo if I do!” His teeth were set and hiss eyes “shot fire of scorn”—I believe this is the technical description of his condition. Mr. Buchanan said no doubt we had all read the criticisms in the morning’s papers, and a melancholy smile pervaded the auditorium. The authors of “A Society Butterfly,” he proceeded to say, were quite indifferent to such criticisms. Nevertheless Mr. Buchanan assured his audience that at least one of these papers,

MEANING THE “DAILY TELEGRAPH,”

contained “deliberate and malignant misstatements.” “Let me read you some extracts,” he said, and produced a copy of the paper. “Every word I have read to you to-night from this paper,” he continued, after quoting some extracts, “is absolutely false,” and the gallery, seeing in Mr. Buchanan the virtuous heroine and in the critics the smiling villain of the impromptu act before them, applauded loudly. “This is not the first time,” said Mr. Buchanan triumphantly, “that Mr. Scott has endeavored to do me injury.” He made still more uncomplimentary remarks, such as “without veracity, without conscience, without honor,” and something stronger still, somewhat cheap and vulgar. We were told that the written paper from which this fiery diatribe had been read would be printed that night.

TO THE ABSENT JOURNALIST,

whose alleged shortcomings had been recited with such dramatic interest. “The whole audience last night,” Mr. Buchanan declared with great warmth, “remained seated until the fall of the curtain, but in the upper part of the house there was the most unseemly demonstration that ever took place even in a theatre. A cabal was there to insult and terrify a helpless woman. Throughout the play an attempt was made to twist every inherent reference into a personal imputation, and when the third act terminated weakly and feebly through a mishap the cabal howled and hooted at the leading actress, who was in no way responsible for what had occurred.”
Mr. Murray did not attempt anything like dramatic effect, but announced in somewhat mild tones, “I cordially endorse all that has fallen from my friend Mr. Buchanan.” Some in the gallery applauded and some few upheld the Press, and others in other parts of the house went away wondering why Mr. Buchanan invited criticism if he did not like it, or whether the new act— certainly the best in the piece—tacked on to the end of “A Society Butterfly” on the second night would prove a beneficial advertisement or otherwise.

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The Westminster Gazette (12 May, 1894 - p.2)

Mr. Buchanan is in the wars again, and once more it is one of his critics who comes in for the vials of his wrath. On his present quarrel with Mr. Clement Scott, no judgment can be passed except by people who happened to be present at the first night of Mr. Buchanan’s play at the Opéra Comique. Only they are in a position to judge whether the disapproval then shown, either towards Mr. Buchanan and his co-author, or towards Mrs. Langtry as their leading lady, was or was not, in Mr. Buchanan’s phrase, the act of a “cabal.” Apparently, last night’s audience cheered with much gusto the personal references to Mr. Clement Scott which Mr. Buchanan poured forth from the stage. But then Mr. Clement Scott will probably declare in his turn that that was all a “cabal.” The incident is an interesting pendant to Mr. William Archer’s indictment in the Fortnightly against himself and his brother dramatic critics for excessive and increasing bitterness of criticism. True, Mr. Buchanan began his harangue with the inevitable remark that he and his co-author were “perfectly indifferent to criticism.” But playwrights can hardly expect us to believe in their philosophic indifference to criticism when they make furious retorts over the footlights upon their critics.

_____

MRS. LANGTRY AT THE OPERA COMIQUE.

“A Society Butterfly” has proved a decided disappointment. Some of the audience hoped for a good play, and did not get it; others expected a succes de scandale and fared no better. Rumour had said that Mrs. Langtry as Aphrodite would appear in a startling dress, and as Lady Godiva would “go one worse.” The characters in the play suggested that her Venus costume would be, and even was, daringly inadequate—it might not have passed muster at a Drawing Room, it would have been insufficiently decolletée, the costume as the heroine of Coventry was all cloak and Clarkson. Of course it was good that such evil hopes should be disappointed; but ti was wrong wilfully to create them. The piece is a curious pot pourri. The lovely wife of Mr. Charles Dudley lost favour in her husband’s eyes because she was too domesticated, too obtrusively “The Angel in the House,” so he flirted vigorously with an American widow. A sporting duchess, who never opened her mouth without putting her hoof in it, who always used a wearisome stable jargon, advised Mrs. Dudley to adopt the old stage device of rekindling a husband’s love by threatening him with a rival. She chose a Captain Belton, and they indulged in a rehearsal act somewhat too reminiscent of “Frou Frou.” Then the unhappy wife—after joining Messrs. Buchanan and Henry Murray (the authors of the play) in the study of “Francillon”—when her husband’s guilt seemed clear to her, announced falsely that Captain Belton was her lover. Afterwards came a scene from the clever play by Messrs. Arthur Symons and Frank Harris, “The Minister’s Call,” with the rôles reversed. Mrs. Dudley suggested to Captain Belton that they should elope, and he refused to make an open scandal, and proposed a secret, commonplace domestic intrigue, which horrified her. The end, of course, was an explanation between husband and wife, and a reconciliation. It is impossible to believe that an experienced man such as Mr. Buchanan could believe that the play as a play would prove successful. One is accustomed to find ability—misdirected—in his stage ventures, but on this occasion reliance obviously was placed on the third act, in which some tableaux vivants and an amateur music-hall entertainment occurred. It was no well enough contrived top please the house. The able acting of Miss Rose Leclercq as the duchess commanded respect and applause; Mr. Edward Rose as a dilettante nobleman earned legitimately some hearty laughter; Mr. Fred Kerr acted cleverly as Captain Belton; and Miss E. B . Sheridan played rather well as the American widow. Mrs. Langtry—the Mrs. Dudley—seemed frightened by the signs of hostility, and showed little of the skill that caused the critics to respect her work as Rosalind and Esther Sandraz.

p.5

Mr. BUCHANAN and Mr. CLEMENT SCOTT.

REMARKABLE SPEECH.

INTERVIEW WITH THE “DAILY TELEGRAPH” CRITIC.

After the performance of Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Henry Murray’s new play at the Opera Comique last night, the manager asked the audience not to leave their seats, as Mr. Buchanan wished to say a few words. Mr. Buchanan, advancing to the footlights, then referred to the Daily Telegraph criticism. “We, as authors of the play, are perfectly indifferent to criticism, that is to say when criticism is fair, but unfair and malignant criticism is quite another matter.” Mr. Buchanan then read a long extract from Mr. Clement Scott’s criticism, ending, “There was no fuss, no fury, no gibes, no cat-calls; the audience merely melted and disappeared.” “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” continued Mr. Buchanan, “my further remarks on that will be read to you and sent to Mr. Clement Scott, for what I have read to you is absolutely false. (Loud and prolonged cheering.) The whole audience remained seated until the fall of the curtain, but in the upper part of the house there was the most unseemly demonstration that ever took place even in a theatre. A cabal was there to insult and terrify a helpless woman. Throughout the play an attempt was made to twist every inherent reference into a personal imputation, and when the third act terminated weakly and feebly through a mishap the cabal howled and hooted at the leading actress, who was in no way responsible for what had occurred.” Mr. Buchanan then proceeded to make a strong personal attack upon Mr. Clement Scott, depreciation, insinuation, and imputation being scattered about with a lavish hand, in language warm and vivid. Mr. Buchanan quitted the stage amidst loud and sustained cheers. Mr. Henry Murray remained behind, and said: “Ladies and gentlemen,—I have no word to say except that I cordially endorse every word Mr. Buchanan has spoken.”
Following on Mr. Murray’s withdrawal from the stage, there were loud calls for Mrs. Langtry, who was received with much enthusiasm.

__________

WHAT MR. SCOTT SAYS.

   Mr. Clement Scott was astonishingly cheerful under the circumstances. Much experience of this sort of thing has taught him to treat such matters with a philosophic calm which borders on the sublime.
   In fact, “I have really nothing to say on the subject,” was his first remark to a representative of THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, who called on him at his chambers this morning. “Mr. Buchanan,” he continued, “has done it before, and I have no doubt he will do it again, but we have managed to remain good friends in spite of it all, and I daresay we shall continue to remain so. It pleases him and doesn’t hurt me. No, I don’t suppose I shall take any further notice of it unless my solicitors advise me otherwise, which is not very likely.
   “Of course,” continued Mr. Scott with a smile, “what Mr. Buchanan says is preposterously untrue, but that is really one reason why it is not necessary to take serious notice of it. Talk of that sort carries with it its own refutation. As to his assertion that I am habitually partial or prejudiced or deliberately unfair, I think I can safely leave a statement of that kind to the judgment of my readers and those who know me.
   “But there—this is not the first time that Mr. Buchanan has forgotten himself in this way. On a former occasion he accused me in his genial way of standing with my hat in one hand and a bludgeon in the other”—a picturesque figure of Mr. Buchanan’s which Mr. Scott recalled with manifest relish/ “But he does not mean anything by it. It is only his fun, and when he has recovered himself I daresay we shall be just as good friends as ever. It is the penalty of my position, I suppose”—and Mr. Scott smiled resignedly.
   “At the same time,” he proceeded, “I should like to point out what an outrageous breach of the proprieties which ought to govern such things Mr. Buchanan commits in attacking me in this manner. How does he know that I wrote the notice in question? It was not signed, and might have been written by anyone else, for all he knows. I don’t write all the dramatic notices in the Daily Telegraph. Yet, on the strength of what amounts to a mere guess on his part, he does not scruple to attack me personally in this abusive fashion. It is the grossest violation—but there——” and Mr. Scott smiled again apologetically for so far forgetting himself as to take Mr. Buchanan so seriously.
   “Mr. Buchanan declares that you have persistently endeavoured to do him personal injury, and says that you have again and again gone out of your way to abuse his work.”
   “Utterly untrue. I have no personal grudge against him whatever. I have been on the best of terms with him personally and have praised his plays again and again in the warmest terms. Why, in this very criticism to which he objects I alluded in the most complimentary way to the good work which he has done in the past. But I could not praise this play, because I regarded it as an utterly unworthy production. And I said so. I might have devoted a column to its analysis, but the result would have been the same. It is a poor play, and I thought it best to dismiss it in the briefest possible manner.”
   “And what about the organised cabal which Mr. Buchanan speaks of?”
   “There was none. It is utterly untrue. No one condemns anything of that sort more severely than I do, and no one would be more quick to notice it, but on this occasion there was nothing of the kind. One or two of the passages excited the laughter of the audience, but that was all. There was no organised opposition at all. As to Mr. Buchanan’s denial of my statement that many of the audience left before the end of the piece, there again he is absolutely at fault, for I could name a dozen persons of my own knowledge who did not stay it out.
   “But, really,” said Mr. Scott in conclusion, in a spirit of clemency which justified his name, “I don’t want to make too much of the affair. I don‘t want a scene next time I go to the theatre, with hooting and cheering from the pit, and that sort of thing,” a prospect at the mere thought of which Mr. Scott shuddered apprehensively. “Don’t be too hard on him. Whatever you make me say, put it as nicely as you can”—with which pathetic adjuration ringing in his ears, our representative took his leave.

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The Daily Chronicle (12 May, 1894 - p.5)

PLAYWRIGHT AND CRITICS.—When the curtain fell last night on the last act of Messrs. Robert Buchanan’s and Henry Murray’s new play, “A Society Butterfly,” at the Opera Comique, contrary to custom after the first night, Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Murray came before the curtain, and the first-named addressed the audience. He said that no doubt those present had read the unfavourable criticisms in that morning’s papers on the new play now before them. To those criticisms the authors were perfectly indifferent, but one notice in particular contained “deliberate and malignant misstatements.” Mr. Buchanan then proceeded to read the criticism in question, and wound up by saying that every word was absolutely false, a statement received by the audience with loud applause; that this was not the first attempt on the part of the critic to do him injury, and he referred in detail to other alleged attempts of the kind, going on to make a violent personal attack on the writer, and embodying therein some very strong charges. The speaker concluded by promising to send a copy of the statement he had just made to the critic in question. Mr. Murray “cordially endorsed” every word of his partner, and some of the gallery applauded while two or three indulged in chaff. The rest of the house did not seem to know whether or not to take Mr. Buchanan in earnest.

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The Yorkshire Evening Post (12 May, 1894 - p.3)

“Trid on the tail av me coat,” said Mr. Robert Buchanan, scornfully, as he trailed his critical garment in the Opera Comique last night. There was an intellectual Donnybrook in progress. Mr. Clement Scott had condemned A Society Butterfly, which is from the gifted pen of Mr. Buchanan; and that gentleman took to the stage to make his tu quoque more effective. And sich langwidge! “The writer of foolish verses for the music-halls, and of crude adaptations which he offers to leading actresses”—this is the unkind way in which Mr. Buchanan described the great Scott—“has again and again gone out of his way to abuse my work. I wish from this stage to state publicly that he is an egotistical and spiteful writer.” When two men quarrel about their bread-and-butter in this style, the libel laws afford a very unsatisfactory remedy for both.

_____

. . .

Mr. Robert Buchanan is such a clever fellow that one always feels angry at him for just missing success. The other day he had three plays running at the same time; where are does barties now? And his new play, A Society Butterfly, seems foredoomed to failure. Not even the fact that Mrs. Langtry wears the novelist dresses—one “a gown of plain satin of the faintest imaginable yellow”—can pull it through. The Jersey Lily also appeared in tableaux vivants as Lady Godiva and as Helen in The Judgment of Paris, which sounds risky. But, as one disappointed critic remarks, “in the deed they were as decorous as a provincial bazaar side-show.”

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Reynolds’s Newspaper (13 May, 1894)

DRAMA, MUSIC, AND ART.
_____

“A SOCIETY BUTTERFLY” AT THE
OPERA COMIQUE.

Messrs. Buchanan and Murray’s new play deserved a better reception than it received at the Opera Comique on Thursday night. It was well staged, well acted, and most of the dialogue was crisp and up-to-date. Some modern doctrines as to women’s position were incidentally inculcated, but the finale was vice reproved and domestic happiness triumphant. Accordingly, the moral English audience should have been satisfied. Yet the disapproval given expression to by some was not altogether unjustifiable. Acts I. and II. were of the right length and to the point. Act III., while it contained the finest situation and best writing of the whole play, was entirely too long, and filled up with a lot of irrelevant matter. The second part of the amateur theatricals should be cut out altogether. When this is done, together with some other judicious pruning and polishing, the play will be tolerably good.
The motive is jealousy. Mr. Charles Dudley, after a few years of marriage, tires of what he considers his wife’s monotonous domesticity and fidelity, and so beguiles the time by making love to Mrs. Courtlandt Parke, an American widow. This is discovered by his wife, who, at the suggestion of the Duchess of Newhaven, a slangy, but good-hearted woman of the world, determines to win him back by making him jealous in turn. In this she succeeds almost too well. She becomes a “Society beauty,” throws herself unreservedly into the vortex of fashion, and flirts atrociously with one Captain Belton. It is in the pursuance of this course that, much against the wish of her husband, she performs in some amateur theatricals at the Duchess of Newhaven’s house, where she takes the part of

Idalian Aphrodite beautiful
Fresh as the foam, new bathed in Paphian wells,

while Captain Belton takes the role of Paris. Dudley, who deeply loves his wife, and who is driven to desperation by what he conceives to be her folly and heartlessness, is on the point of separating from her for ever, when a reconciliation is brought about by the Duchess and Dr. Coppée, an old friend of the Dudleys.
Mrs. Langtry showed that she was not a mere Society butterfly, but a careful actress. She was at her best in Act III., where, in the scene between herself and her husband, she displayed considerable histrionic ability. Mr. William Herbert acted well as Mr. Dudley. Miss Rose Leclercq rendered the part of the sporting duchess in a manner which well deserved the applause it received on the fall of the curtain. Mrs. Courtlandt Parke was performed by Miss E. B. Sheridan in very creditable style. Captain Belton, the fashionable Lothario, who, however, is not prepared to sacrifice everything for the woman he pretends to love, found an able exponent in Mr. F. Kerr; and the parts of Dr. Coppée and Lord Augustus Leith were well filled by Messrs. Allan Beaumont and Edward Rose.

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The Referee (13 May, 1894 - p.3)

Application and hard work are necessary to success on the stage as in any other profession, and it is therefore not surprising that Mrs. Langtry, on taking up acting again after a long time, should not have improved with want of practice. Not only has she not advanced, she has gone back; and her flaccid performance of Mrs. Dudley in “A Society Butterfly,” the new play by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray, produced on Thursday night at the Opéra Comique, relegated her to the ranks of the amateur who has pretty well everything to learn. The excellence of her intentions may be allowed, but the power of expression was utterly incommensurate. There was little feeling in her voice, her gestures were ineffective, and she failed to command, not only the admiration, but even the respect of the audience, who treated her with slight civility. It is as well to speak plainly, for although Mrs. Langtry appears at the head of the company, it is pretty clear that she does not hold that position by right of talent, which is the only right the public acknowledges. To be sure, the piece is not one that demands overmuch of an actress. It would almost seem that the authors had taxed their ingenuity expressly to provide Mrs. Langtry with a showy part. The difficulties with which the “butterfly” is confronted resolve themselves actually into nothing more than a domestic difference of no desperate gravity. Mrs. Dudley, to revenge herself upon the husband who has slighted her, plunges into what lady novelists call the vortex of Society. Whilst her husband is paying court to an American widow, who Is not so wicked as she seems, Mrs. Dudley encourages the addresses of a young gentleman—played by Mr. F. Kerr in his only way—who does not seem so wicked as he is. But it is a great case of much ado about nothing, for nobody is very seriously compromised in the end, when the husband and wife are reconciled. Miss Rose Leclercq acts with dash as a sporting duchess, speaking only in the language of the turf, whose house is the scene of the tableaux vivants which excite great expectations that are not realised. We hear of a costume for the “butterfly” that has been brought home “in a glove-box,” but there is (only idiomatically speaking) nothing in it. The tableaux vivants, indeed, might be cut out altogether without impairing “A Society Butterfly’s” chance of success. At the end of the performance the authors were called before the curtain, and Mr. Robert Buchanan, not to be exceeded by the gallery in the expression of derision, retorted with the action that is known as blowing a kiss. Or perhaps it was only his way of returning good for evil.

On Friday Mr. Buchanan was not in nearly so playful a humour. Before the curtain rose on the last act the manager came forward and stated that Mr. Buchanan wished to address the audience, which he did in due course, and in extremely injudicious terms, holding in his hands a copy the Daily Telegraph, whose criticism he resented. There was no extra charge for this part of the entertainment. Something, though, may come of it. I hope it may not be human gore. There is one man, at any rate, who agrees with the furious Mr. Buchanan, and that is Mr. Henry Murray, joint author of the play, who contented himself with saying “ditto” to Mr. B.

There was to-night at the Adelphi some indication as to which side the public—the public who are theatre-goers—will take in the curious bit of warfare that has sprung up between the author of “A Society Butterfly” and the dramatic critic of the Daily Telegraph. Directly Mr. Clement Scott was espied entering a private box cheering arose in all parts of the house. There was no getting away from the demonstration, and Mr. Scott, at the front of the box, with smiles and repeated bows acknowledged it.

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The People (13 May, 1894 - p.6)

OPERA COMIQUE

Judged by the forbidding reception accorded on Thursday night on the re-opening of the Opera Comique to the so-called comedy of modern life, “A Society Butterfly,” the life of the piece is likely to prove as ephemeral as its title suggests; nor can it be said that the audience were less than justified in their condemnation by the poor quality of the play itself. Its authors, Messrs. R. Buchanan and H. Murray, having borrowed from a succession of dramatic sources, ranging from the ancient comedy of “The Way to Keep Him,” to the modern drama of “Francillon,” the stratagem of a neglected wife winning back an errant husband’s love by arousing his jealousy against a presumed rival, through affecting to play against him his own game of marital infidelity, proceed to supplement this too familiar device by linking it with the latest “turns” of a music hall entertainment presenting tableaux vivants, followed, without rhyme or reason, by imitations of popular actors having not the slightest reference to the play or even to each other. Nor was the weakness of their commonplace play masked or in any way compensated for by any strength on the part of Mrs. Langtry, who, after a long withdrawal from the stage, revisited the glimpses of the footlights to play the wife, her impersonation being so amateurish, through lack of both artistic accomplishment and emotional expression, as to give an impression of insincerity. This evidence of unreality became the more apparent by contrast with the finished comedy displayed by that perfect histrion, Miss Rose Leclercq, in delineating the peculiarities of a highly sporting duchess, whose conversation is interlarded to excess with the slang of the hunting field and racing stable. Nothing but the naturally refined humour of the actress could have served so to mask the extravagant vulgarity of this character as to render it tolerable, as the audience acknowledged by applauding the player while decrying the play. Mr. William Herbert acted the peccant husband with discretion; and Mr. Allan Beaumont brought his sound histrionic style to bear with justly telling effect in the part of a shrewd French medico. As the would-be tempter of the wife, Mr. F. Kerr gave such a truthful portrayal as he has used playgoers to expect from him of an easy aristocratic libertine, the repulsiveness of whose utter selfishness is half masked by unconscious humour. Other parts, in a very full cast too numerous to mention, were sufficiently well played, but it is to be feared to no purpose in saving the play itself from its initial failure taken purely upon its merits—or want of them. It was, no doubt, cruel to summon the authors before the curtain only to deride them; but latter day audiences who have paid their money are rather given to bait dramatists who fail to give them a pennyworth for their penny.

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The Weekly Dispatch (13 May, 1894 - p.6)

MRS. LANGTRY AT THE OPERA COMIQUE.

It is extremely doubtful if “A Society Butterfly” will ever, as a play, get past its chrysalis stage. Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray are authors from whom something, at least, more than ordinary was to be expected, yet it is doubtful if this last venture even reaches mediocrity. It is a very old jangle that has been treated a hundred different ways in the plays of the past, and it is padded with all the objectionable eccentricities of the plays of the present. A game of cross-purposes between husband and wife brings both to misery, and therein is the whole story. Charles Dudley has a charming domesticated wife; this bores him, and he forms a sub-rosà attachment for a fast American widow with a bungalow on the Thames and a large stock of loose ideas and practices. The wife discovers it, and at the suggestion of a worldy-wise duchess determines to checkmate him by having her own “fling.” She develops into a Society butterfly of the most decided hue, to the horror of her husband, who, cured of his folly, wishes for the old “Darby and Joan” life, and he at last determines to separate. Se, in her turn, has got entangled with a Society man who, when it comes to the test, backs out and deserts her. Consequently there is nothing left for the estranged but to “kiss and be friends.” There is little of plot, less of action and situation—indeed, nothing but “frocks and faces,” and of these there are plenty, if not too spare. In the third act some tableaux and music-hall business are introduced, but Thursday’s audience resented the departure. As Mrs. Dudley, Mrs./ Langtry relies chiefly upon her classic face, perfect form, and charming personality, with glittering gems and superb costumes, but these things do not make a great artist. They may charm, amuse, and attract the crowd, but they do not create genius or make up for it when wanting. Miss Rose Leclercq as a Society duchess, with the heart of a true woman concealed under the manners of a bookmaker and with the slang of a jockey, created a perfect furore of approbation, and her acting may go far to save the piece. Mr. William Herbert as the husband, Mr. Allan Beaumont as Dr. Coppée, his friend and adviser, and Miss E. B. Sheridan as the outré widow, acquitted themselves thoroughly well in all they had to do; and the scenery and accessories, as in all the Langtry ventures, were artistic and elaborate. After the unfortunate tableaux business, the remainder of the piece went off under a running fire of chaff; and at the close, after Miss Leclercq and others had received marked expressions of approval, the authors were “called” and greeted with a chorus of discordant howls. Mr. Buchanan, who responded by good-humouredly kissing his hand, may be consoled with the assurance that before now many plays have been howled into marked success.

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The Weekly Times & Echo (13 May, 1894 - p.13)

PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS.

OPERA COMIQUE.

criticism would be thrown away upon such wearisome twaddle as “A Society Butterfly,” which Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray audaciously describe as their “new and original comedy of modern life.” The story is trivial and commonplace in itself, and in its treatment there is no trace whatever of artistic skill. It is quite impossible to take the slightest interest in the characters; they are not amusing enough to laugh at, and not sufficiently human to enlist a spark of sympathy. By allusions to a Greek dress packed in a glove box, and to the sensation which Mrs. Langtry—the “society butterfly” of the title—would make when she appeared in some amateur tableaux vivants in a Duchess’s drawing-room in the third act, the audience were led to expect something risky, if not positively shocking. But they were, for some covert reason, disappointed. When the anxiously-awaited moment came, all they saw was Mrs. Langtry posing on the dusky stage as Lady Godiva—completely enveloped in a long dark-green velvet cloak, and with a cataract of dark hair tumbling down her back. A large section of the audience who felt—not altogether without reason—that they had been deliberately tricked, vented their anger in boos and hisses. These demonstrations were renewed at the close when the authors presented themselves in front of the curtain, and Mr. Buchanan acknowledged them by contemptuously throwing a kiss towards the malcontents. By this time, however, the audience had materially diminished in size. With regard to the acting, it only need be said that Miss Rose Leclercq, as a Duchess whose talk is wholly made up of stable slang, and Mr. Fred Kerr, as a fast young gentleman, played with their usual cleverness.

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The Umpire (13 May, 1894 - p.3)

   The only serious venture of the past week has been the reopening of the Opera Comique by Mrs. Langtry, in a society play written for her by Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray, and which has resulted in a fiasco.
   It is long since Mrs. Langtry has given any serious attention to acting, but it suits her purpose from time to time to take a theatre or to play a part.
   The time has come for another experiment of the kind, hence her appearance at the Opera Comique.

   Mrs. Langtry is the happy possessor of from £50,000 to £100,000 worth of diamonds, principally in the form of a queenly tiara, and it is her practice now when she appears on the stage to put them all on. Just as she wore them at the Haymarket, so she wears them now at the Opera Comique, although she is supposed to be neither a queen, nor a duchess, nor even a millionairess, but a plain Mrs. Dudley.
   Then her gowns—one must not forget her gowns. No one who goes to the Opera Comique, indeed, is likely to forget them, seeing that her changes of costume (or, so I suppose) entail portentous delays between the acts.
   The play is one of the deadest that has been seen in London for some time. It is called, by the way, “A Society Butterfly,” and its object is to show a woman bringing her roving husband back to her feet by pretending to engage in a round of dissipation, and to compromise herself with a rather disreputable military man.

   The story as evidently been suggested by Dumas’ “Françillon.”
   Needless to say, the lady who has to go the pace for a time is Mrs. Langtry. There might be something in the part if it were played with feeling, but Mrs. Langtry does not bother herself with any nonsense of that kind.
   Her expected triumph as a “society butterfly” was to be achieved in a series of tableaux vivants, but by the time this scene arrived the house had lost its interest in the performance, and the pictures, far from good of their kind, did not prove impressive.
   Perhaps in the eyes of the house their worst fault was a superabundance of costume.
   We had been given to understand that the pictures would be slightly shocking, but they might have formed the staple of a magic lantern entertainment at Exeter Hall.
   Apart from Mrs. Langtry, there is some fairly good acting in the piece, notably by Rose Leclercq as a horsey and slangy duchess, Edward Rose as a young society ass, and Fred Kerr, to quote a humorous critic, as himself.
   Somme toute, however; I do not see what good the Opera Comique experiment can do anybody, even Mrs. Langtry

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A Society Butterfly - continued

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