Disraeli (play)

Disraeli has to contend with prejudice from some characters because of his Jewish parentage, while Lady Beaconsfield is snubbed for having married a converted Jew.A garden room get-together allows six trivial titled characters, the Brookes, the Cudworths, and the Glastonburys, to deliver exposition on their family relationships.Disraeli confides to his wife his intention to match Charles and Clarissa, by turning the young man into someone she can admire.Disraeli disarms Charles by confiding his plans for "a ditch in the sand..." but Mrs. Travers intrudes, so he concludes with "...is best for planting celery".Disraeli tells Charles to immediately leave for Egypt to tender the offer, warning him of the personal danger.Clarissa and Lady Beaconsfield are there when a telegram from Charles arrives: "The Suez Canal Purchase is completed and the cheque accepted".The Suez now safely under British ownership, Disraeli has coerced the Commons into granting Victoria the title Empress of India.The diplomatic and aristocratic grandees of London have gathered at a reception to await the Queen's arrival to officially receive the honor.Clarissa, however, waits for Charles' imminent return from Egypt, while Disraeli misses Lady Beaconfield's company and dreads expected news of her final moments.When Tyler ran into Arliss at the St. Nicholas Hotel in Cincinnati some years later, he was performing in a dismal failure and wondering where he could get a good play.[2] Robert M. Fells says Arliss saw a portrayal of the Victorian British statesman Benjamin Disraeli as an ideal vehicle for his stage career.[7] It then played brief dates in Toledo and Columbus, Ohio, but a sudden booking opening in Chicago led to Liebler & Company cancelling other "whistle stops".He said "the story falls down hard at the end of the second act", wherein the demonstrated ineptness of Charles is overcome by a Disraeli pep talk.[14] Following a long summer hiatus, the production reopened in Pittsburgh's Alvin Theatre for a week's shakedown run[fn 4] starting 11 September 1911.Though it had "firm dramatic foundations" and was well staged, costumed, and performed,[17] it was little more than a historical character sketch, and "pretty dull drama".[18] Only in the third act did it come alive, when the author "gets dramatic value out of a financial transaction", and "the kindly, bantering lord" changes to the "enraged and dangerous Prime Minister".