Blessed with a playwright’s name for a playwright, the French dramatist Eugène Scribe is credited with having penned more than 400 plays, many of them swiftly turned into libretti for Verdi (Un Ballo in maschera), Rossini and other bright beacons of 19th-century opera. Though his work survives in the opera house, the spoken theatre knows it no more, despite brave attempts by the eminent critic Anthony Curtis to remind us of the qualities it must once have exhibited. His latest attempt is a version of the 1828 comedy Le Mariage d’argent, which takes a cool look at the get-rich society of the Bourbon Restoration, and the temptation it offered to get richer by marrying money.

Having to choose between love and lucre is a familiar predicament facing young heroes, and usually ends with a fond playwright blessing them with both. Scribe is altogether sharper here, and while one of the characters does indeed find himself in this happy position he is not the man whose ditherings are central to the plot. This unappealing individual is Poligni, formerly a dashing Napoleonic officer but now in serious need of funds. The love of his life married someone else, his debts have mounted, and finally he agrees to marry the wealthy ward of a friend who has made a mint at the Bourse.

This being a play, no sooner has he done so than his love returns from abroad, now widowed, and the future could be a garden of roses for both were it not that their author contrives to slam all the garden doors shut. Chance infidelities by other characters, chance misunderstandings — these are the contrivances that put the roses out of reach.

It is true that these upsets reveal Poligni’s unattractive nature, and I take it that Max Digby’s performance in Robert Gillespie’s production intends us to recognise this. But the process is confused by also presenting him as truly in love with his boyhood sweetheart — an attractive performance here by Fliss Walton. Actual wrongdoers — adulterous wife, swindler father — get away with their offences and, while this adds to the cynical, Balzacian tone, the character of Poligni lacks the depth and the dash that might carry the story home.

Along the way there is much to admire in Roger Ringrose’s shrewd and jolly millionaire, and Oliver Chopping’s impatient enthusiasm as a society painter, but as a dramatist Scribe would seem to need Verdi et al to give him life today.

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