Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Notes on the First Performance of the Cenci: Extracts From Reviews of the First Performance, 7th
This story of T Ire Cenci has been closely, indeed literally, followed in the play, and it is for the Shelley Society to explain how they reconcile a public performance of it with the poet's expressed repugnance to a dry exhibition of it on the stage. It is true that Shelley declares that the person who would treat such a subject must increase the ideal and diminish the actual horror of the events, so that the pleasure which arises from the poetry ex isting in these tempestuous sufferings and crimes may mitigate the pain of the contemplation of the moral deformity from which they spring but as he himself has not attempted, or at all events has not e?'ected, such a mitigation of the ghastly features of the legend, the objection so forcibly expressed by him to the poem as an acting play remains. In any case, the performance of The Cenci on a public stage is a doubtful service which the Shelley Society render to their idol's memory. Whatever Shelley's intentions with regard to The Cenci may have been, it is unquestionably proved at this, its first, performance, to be wanting in some of the essentials of a good play. That its language is vigorous, poetic, and noble may be allowed, none the less because certain passages recall both Mack: and Hamlet; but the dramatic elements of the story are not handled with the requisite skill to keep the nerves of the audience in a high state of tension. The action is without variety. It is blood-curdling, horrible, revolting even, but it is uniform, and, except in the case of Shelley's enthusiasts, weariness is apt at the end of the first hour or two to take the place of the shudders of disgust occasioned at the outset by the nameless deeds of Count Cenci. Beatrice's character is necessarily in some degree sympa thetic; but the poet commits a strange mistake in view of the dramatic exigencies of the case in making her after her own dis honour and her father's murder cling with such tenacity to life as to forswear herself in the judge 5 presence. Her sudden change of front is incomprehensible. High praise is due to Mr. Hermann Vezin for an awe-inspiring embodiment of Count Cenci, and to Miss Alma Murray for a Beatrice combining maidenly dignity with the highest tragic force. Both performers were of invaluable service to the play the atrocities laid to the charge of Count Cenci were - thanks to their skill - almost brought within the range of the conceivable. The part of the time-serving and libidinous priest, Orsini, was also forcibly played by Mr. L. S. Outram, while the other characters were for the most part in safe hands. In respect of acting and mounting, indeed, T lze Cenci had every justice done to it. Its place in English literature remains what it was; but the Shelley Society may, if they are so disposed, claim to have effectually demolished its pretensions as a play.
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