The piece was first introduced to a Shanghai audience by the Geo. Norvillo Dramatic Company in the winter of 1879, but they performed it to a very small audience, so that A Lesson in Love was probably novelty to the majority of those present at the Lyceum on Tuesday evening, There are only six characters in this comedy, and there are no startling dramatic situations with which the audience may be surprised or charmed, but the interest of the piece is maintained solely by the dialogue, and on this account it becomes a difficult one for amateurs to carry through successfully. And although there are no groupings of a number of characters on the stage, or any apparently complicated tableaux, there is considerable difficulty keeping the positions of those engaged in. the piece so that the words that each one has to say appear easy and natural, and that no' awkwardness offends the audience. How dificult a piece A Lesson in Love in to act would not, perhaps, have been apparent to the audience on Tuesday evening, as the familiarity with the stage and the undoubted ity of the amateurs engaged in it then, carried everything off extremely well, an smoothed over those difficulties which are only realised by 'a close acquaintance with the comedy. Under these circumstances: more than ordinary credit is due to those who took parts in the piece for the unconstrained and lively way in which all three acts wore dono, showing evidence not only of careful rehearsing, but a readiness to follow stage directions which we do not always seo at the Lyceum.
The plot of the comedy is of the slightest description. The first act drawing room of the hotel at Winkleboroughon-the-Sands, and introduces us to Mrs. Sutherland, a charming and lively widow, and her friend Edith Leslie, who are reviewing the merits of an acquaintance. Than enters Mr. Babblebrook, an elderly gentleman with a decided penchant for gossip of any description, whereby he earns from Mrs, Sutherland the nickname of "The Newspaper." From Babblebrook the ladies learn of the advent of another guest at the hotel, and they get rid of the old gossip by packing him off to ascertain what the new arrival has ordered for dinner. It turns out that this new arrival is a certain Captain Freeman, a great friend of Mrs, Sutherland, and as the lady has a turn for mat, like the majority of her sex, she makes up her mind that Captain Freeman must fall in love with and marry her friend Edith Li but owing to the unconquerable timidity and bashfulness of her tall dragoon friend, she finds it no easy task to carry out her object. To render this more difficult, another suitor enters' the field in the person of Mr. Orlando Middlemark, aninflammable, changeable and unsuccessful devotee at the altar of Hymen, who, according to his friend Captain Freeman, folia in lov with every marriageable Indy he me When we first make his acquaintance he is violently in love with Edith Leslie, and, nothing daunted by Mrs. Sutherland's advocacy of Captain Freeman, accepts battle with her forEdith'shand. Mrs. Sutherland's clever plans for accomplishing her object only excite - Middlemark's unbounded
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.