Nicholas Fawsitt, having fallen upon comparatively hard times (ie., to an income of a paltry thousand or so a year), decides to let his house in Portman Square and retire to the Moat House at Paunder's Green. A country life does not appeal to his second wife nor to his children, but he resolves to take the step nevertheless. Mrs. Fawsitt, not satisfied with objecting, does everything in her power to make his life uncomfortable at Paunder's Green. She poses as a martyr, half-starved, miserable, and unhappy. She refuses to fall in with the present state of affairs, quarrels with the servants, and protests against every suggestion her husband makes. Fawsitt sees through all this, and goes his own way. Trouble over the hanging of a picture brings things to a climax, and she threatens to leave him. Annoyed because he remains unrelentless she goes - not with her supposed lover, but to the house of a friend.
Two days later Fawsitt has got things a bit ship-shape at Paunder's Green, and Mrs. Fawsitt returns, expecting her husband to capitulate. But he is as obdurate as ever. In the place of the picture he has nailed a pair of trousers on the wall, and refuses to move them without his wife's complete submission to his will. At this, she resolves to leave him again, but he reads her a letter from her supposed lover in which her plot to deceive him is laid bare, and Dorinda Fawsitt, realising the weakness of her position, falls sobbing to the table and asks forgiveness. The rebellious attitude of his family also collapses, and he is left master of his own home and head of a happy family.
If one can get away from the belief that no woman would act so unreasonably as Dorinda under such unfortunate circumstances, there is a good deal of amusement to be got out of the play and a good deal of food for the reflection of modern wives. Sir George Alexander is happy in the part of Nicholas Fawsitt, and plays it with a subtlety that is worth watching closely. As the wife, Miss Kate Cutler is fitted with a capital part; and other characters are cared for by Misses Gladys Cooper, Dorothy Fane, and Maidee Hope, and Messrs. A. E. Matthews, C. M. Hallard, E. Vivian Reynolds, Owen Nares, and T. N. Weguelin.
The Playgoer and Society Illustrated, No. 25.