Pique

Pique (1875), a play “of today” by Augustin Daly. [Fifth Avenue Theatre, 237 perf.] In a moment of anger Mabel Renfrew ( Fanny Davenport) renounces her fiancé, Raymond Lessing ( Maurice Barrymore), and marries Captain Arthur Standish ( D. H. Hawkins), son of the puritanical Matthew Standish ( Charles Fisher). Once the young couple goes to live with the elder Standish, Arthur quickly realizes that Mabel does not love him, and his father's rigid code of behavior further exacerbates difficulties, so he leaves. Immediately thereafter the Renfrews' young child is kidnapped. The search for the stolen youngster reunites the couple and shows the elder Standish's basic valor. When Raymond weds Mabel's widowed stepmother, Mabel understands that the decision made in pique was the right one after all. With the little boy recovered, she acknowledges, “A happiness that begins tonight for me. . . will endure while heart can beat, or life can last.” The first three acts were based on Florence Lean's novel, Her Lord and Master, while the remaining two acts were suggested by the then recent unsolved kidnapping of Charley Ross and by scenes from Les Misérables. Critics were sharply divided on the merits of Daly's script and production. The Tribune took a middle ground, calling it “not of a high order, either in literary attributes or dramatic construction” but concluding correctly that it combined “comedy, sentiment, and sensation in a way that will not fail to please the average tastes.” A road company, one of the first so organized, was quickly sent on tour.