Stand and Deliver

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is a good bustling "romantic drama", though the material is somewhat hackneyed. It is built round the old story of Claude Duval dancing a minuet with a lady whose coach he has stopped, instead of robbing her. In act I, Claude, who is the foster-brother of the Chevalier de Pontac and has been cruelly treated by him, has him seized, to be carried to Virginia, and takes his place. He has fallen in love with Berenithia, whose uncle, the Mr. Justice Hogben, reveals a scoundrelly scheme to the effect that Berinithia is to marry Pontac in name only and is to become the mistress of the King. This is not a pretty element in the Play but but it almost invariably is present in plays dealing with Charles II. Claude consents, meaning to rescue the lady of course. In act II, we have him as Pontac consorting with all the Restoration notabilities; Pontac reappears, having been brought back from Virginia, and denounces him as an imposter; he escapes. In act III, after an exciting hide and seek business at an inn in Alsatia we get the famous minuet on Newmarket Heath and then Claude, to prove that he really loves Berinthia, who naturally mistrusts him, lets himself be taken. So in Newgate in act IV, CLaude hears that Berinithia has consented to marry Pontac (With the Charles intrigue in the background) to save him, Claude, and that Pontac will keep back the reprieve till too late. So he escapes from Newgate, explains all to the lady, marries her on the spot - the author obliges us by omitting the church service - slays Pontac and is off to America with his love. There are other complications and of course a multitude of other characters, but I think the foregoing sketch is sufficient. The unnamed author - I think it is Mr. J. H. McCarthy - knows his period and though of course the plot and idealization of Duval are all nonsense the play is good of its kind. The language smacks enough of the time to be occasionally free, but it is not impermissibly so. Rec for License G. S. Street.