Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

ensuing deceide turned to the serious treatment of problematic
subjects. The work that has survived in the modern repertoire
from hie early output IB limited to the farces Dandy Dick (1887)
and The Magistrate (1885). To contemporaries Pinoro appeared
one of a group of young playwrights whose work had a solidity
and frshness of dialogue more rewarding than that of the
older authors, Byron and Gilbert, Of The Magistrate (Court
Theatre, 21 ilarch 1885) The Referee observed:
Though the piece is termed a farce, the
situations are evolved in a perfectly rational
manner, and many a so-called comedy is far
more preposterous in its development. Some
of the episodes are irresistibly laughable
and the dialogue, with the exception of a few
lines, is extremely smart.
(22 March 1885)
Clement Scott, in The Illustrated London News, found the
dialogue "written v;ith a dry iiumour and quaintness of expression
very seldom found in the best plays of tlic kind" (28 ;arch
1035). The praise of such qualities can be found in most
reviews of the early farces: Imprudence (Folly Theatre, 27
January 1881) was judged by The v/eekly Dispatch to be "vastly
superior to many oioces by more celebrated authors which have
gained the approval of tlie public" and to ocott it appeared
that in Dandy Dick (Court Theatre, 27 January ICC?) Pinero
land "paid as much attention to the dialogue" us if ho \voro
"writing a comedy that v;ould be live and be acted when ..e are
all riacceci away" (WD 31 July 1801, ILN 5 February l.?C7).By the
end of the decade Frederick .etfmoro could refer to Pinero as
"our greatest living master of the comedy that is farcical"
in the course of a notice of Kobert rueiir>nrua»s :'iss ?onboy
(Academy, 29 7orcli 1890).
Pinoro is credited with the creation of a nev; r:onre , a
resuscitation of farce comparable in ac devesient to ufoe Silver
King as a xvort-v.vliile racloclrrnr . Tr.erc ;vere some reservations,
the most important being the rccusrtioii that he was cynical.
The AC p.0. coy, suggested in its review of The Money oDinner (ot.
Jones, 8 January 1881) that, should Pincro "continuously study
the world he lives in as well ac< the Gtoge he acts upon" ho
might "probably give us work v;hich shall belong to literature