THEATER CHRONICLE
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believes in with the same hero-worship she gives her artist-husband.
She thrusts herself in Sir Colenso's way, to get him to save Dubedat's
life, at the expense of other lives, mere ordinary ones, which appear to
Jennifer much less valuable. But she thus furnishes Ridgeon with a
motive for killing her husband; Ridgeon has fallen in love with her,
though she is too blind to see it. Sir Colenso does not do the deed
himself; he behaves with professional correctness and turns the patient
over to Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington, who kills in all the innocent
fervor of his medical quackery. But once Dubedat is dead, Jennifer
really enters into her element.
If
there is an apotheosis in the play, it
is that of Jennifer, in the final scene, in a red gown and furs and
feathers, in the art gallery, where Dubedat's pictures are being shown
and the memorial volume about him, "The Story of A King of Men.
By his Wife," is stacked, ready for sale. She finally owns Dubedat, who
was unfaithful to her in his lifetime; his pictures at last are making
money; and she has a ne.w husband. Her devotion to Dubedat has paid
off; her hero has not disappointed her. The real fool, it appears, is the
clever Sir Colenso, who is left empty-handed for his pains. He has
killed Dubedat for nothing.
Very little of this was hinted in the performance. Neither Geral–
dine Fitzgerald nor the director appeared to realize that a type-the
artist's wife-is being presented with a certain comic sharpness. In
Miss Fitzgerald's performance, Jennifer's metamorphosis as the widow
is bewildering. But for Shaw, though he is charmed by his heroine, the
widow exists larvally in the figure of the ardent wife. Sir Colenso per–
ceives this; that is why he can kill her husband without remorse. He
is doing her a good turn by removing Dubedat with all his shabby
frailties from the scene and leaving only "a beautiful memory."
Shaw calls this play a tragedy, which I take to be a jest. It is a
very dry comedy, a little sour and chilling. The first act is a classical
satire on the medical profession, which is seen to be composed of char–
latans, naive quacks, or unbelievers. The conclusion appears to be ni–
hilistic: nothing is known in medicine; fads succeed each other in
eternal cycles; patients are cured by accident or by being given the
wrong medicine, through the doctor's carelessness. Sir Colenso, with
his new discovery for "buttering" the disease germs sounds as big a
booby as his colleagues. Only the old doctor, Sir Patrick, who has re–
tired from practice, dares to speak the truth, which is that they are all
bunglers and murderers.
The second act presents the doctor's dilemma. Sir Colenso's cure
for tuberculosis is still in its early stages, so that he can take only a
