THE COURIER.
m
I THE PASSING SHOW I
f I
Angela and Ministers of Grace! No
wonder Mme. Mclba avoids London.
Because of her last visit there the Duke
of Orleans was confined to hiB room for
eight days in hunting season, and dur
ing her stay carefully avoided all public
resorts. If this thing keeps up Melba
will be forbidden to enter English ports
and exiled like poor Modjeska. 1 am
Borry for the Duke, tie must be a
gentleman of a susceptible and roman
tic temperamant to die so hard, and the
Busceptibles are always to be pitied.
But there are a few things in this
world which to have had and lost are
quite enough to keep the Duke of
Orleans indoors a week, even in hunting
Beason.
So Julia Arthur will be with us this
winter and will probably receive the
recognition which was denied her beforo
she went to London. JM168 Arthur is
one of those talented women of whom
there have been several in America,
who seem to have every desirable thing
but success. She has a voice, such a
voice; the face of the tragic muse, and
eyes that might have been Niobe's, so
full of anguish are they. But for 6omo
reason, probably tho Bame old everlast
ing reason, on this side of the Atlantic
she had never brilliant or pro
nounced success. In America we do
not seem to have the faculty of devel
oping great actors. We have no great
national schools of acting like those
abroad, where the severe training
mercilessly divides talent from vain
assumption, giving to the great man all
the secrets of art and putting the little
men where they belong. Wo have no
managers who have elegance of taste
or fine discrimination; who are actors,
playwrights, critics, artists all in one;
who can select the gold from all that
glitters and purify and chasten it. It
is an art to manage an artist, and our
managers are for the most part guiltless
of all art, heaven knows. Then we
have no precedent. In this country
whosoever wills and can find a backer
may star, may even rent a big theatre
and play to the metropolis, yes and
receive respectful attention and consid
eration as if they had a right to be
there. With us training is not requisite
to a "star," to say nothing of talent;
only "nerve" and money. Of course in
spite of all this we have had some great
actors, men in whom the God sent mad
ness of genius raged so 'riotously that
they developed without our help, in
spite of us, in defiance of us, were their
own school, their own managers and
their own traditions. But we hare had
many more like Miss Arthur who go
very well 'until they reach the point
where they need the guiding discipline
of the strong arm and do not find it.
But Miss Arthur, wiser than her kind,
went to London and put herself under
Sir Henry Irving. There she found
what she wanted, positivism and severe
training- Since then she has made sure
and rapid progress and has taken all
Ellen Terry's parts when that great
actress was ill. She has not been seen
in America for several years and r er
hape when she comes back this winter,
if she has profited by Irving's masterly
management and has not been spoiled
by Terry's nervousness, we may still be
proud of her.
A French newspaper that is not on to
the highly proper modes of doing things
across the channel, innocently asks "If
it is to be Sir Henry Irving why is it
not Lady Ellen?" Why not, O great
and righteous court of England?
Elwyn A. Barron, formerly critic on
the Inter Ocean, is now dramatizing
George Eliot's 'Romola" for Julia
Marlowe. Mr. Barron is not a partic
ularly successful playwright. He ib a
reflective man who writes very decidedly
in the essay style and is sometimes a
little given to fine writing and sopho
moric figures. His paragraphs are
graceful and poetic, but he seems to
lack the power to work up definite and
strong action. His only former attempt
at a drama, "When Bess Was Queen,"
was rather a story in dialogue than a
play and did not outlive a dozen per
formances. It is pretty safe to say that
in "Romola' he will not do much better.
Romola is the most tedbus and impos
sible as it is the most studied of all
George Eliot s novels. It is great in its
way, but not as a novel. Then what
will it be as a play? There are play
wrights who could divest the plot of the
awful results of Mrs. Cross' devoted
study of Florentine history, oil it up a
little and make it alive. Tito Milema
could be made quite a fellow if he were
not so learned and even Jiomola herself
might be persuaded to care more for
her husband than for Theocritus, but
Mr. Barron is scarcely tho man to per
suade her. He will devote himself to
the cameos and old parchments and
Savonarola, all of which the theatre
going public cares very little about.
When the gentle and reflective Mr.
Barron gets through with "Romola" it
will be a choice addition to Miss
Marlowe's collection of unplayable
plays. "Chatterton," "Peg Woffington,"
"Colombo's Birthday," "Blot on tho
'Scutcheon" and "Romola." Great arms
of Juno, what a repertoire! If Miss
Marlowe would only revive "The Jew of
Malta" and WycherSy's "Love in a
Wood" and a few of tho miracle plays
she would be perfectly conFistent.
Richard Manbfield will not touch one
of his old successes this season. His
repertoire will be entirely- new includ
ing, "A Son of Don Juan," "The House
of the Wolf" and "A Society Highway
man." It takes a daring artist to -burn
his ships behind him.
Fannie Edgar Thomas, the Paris Cor
respondent of the Musical Courier, a
young lady supposed to be endowed
with good sense and even with good
taste writes a touching lament that the
"truthful lines of Ella Wheeler Wilcox
are so Beldom set in music" She says
they are "so tuneful and lyrical that
they almost sing themselves." Almost
perhaps, but not quite, thank heaven.
Shut up in their red cover one can es
cape them, but give them vocal power
like Memnons smitten of the rising sun
and there is no escape, none. Mrs.
Wilcox, it will be remembered is the
person who wrote those scarlet sins call
ed "Poems of Passion" and "Poems of
Pleasure" in which she Bings of "dear,
dead love" and makes "pray" rhyme
with "America." She lives in a New
York flat and wears gowns that are the
ynlflts., fyv-Asts
ELEGANT LINE OF POCKET
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Fall Jerm opens September 2.
DIRECTOR.
NEBRASKA COLLEGE of ORATORY
GEO. C.AVUIIAVIS, IrlrxoIial
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Geo. C Williams
Miss Minnow Gillum
L. A. Tokbexs
Do. II. M. Gaeten
OPENS Sept 5
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ED. A. CHURCH, Mgr.
Tl?e Flint
Will close
their engagement
T0H1GHT
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Grand production
of Faut
Affir. Jonn Gxriftfitlx
and company
TUESDAY SEPT IO
REGULAR PRICES-
JJXgJgl? QPBRA
P. C. ZEHKUNG, Mgr.
Monday, Tuesday, Wed
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The Spooner Comedy 60.
Cecil Spooner
In new dances and specialties.
Change of bill nightly.
Popular Prices 10, 20 and 30 c.
1
terror of the town. Her husband
travels foi a jewelry house and Ella
writes little poems on various precious
stones and has them printed on the
back of his business cards. She always
orders her meals in French and the
Garcon thinks she is talking Scan
danavian dialect of some sort, and
judiciously bring her what he thinks
best. Wisconsin French is apt to be
a little confusing to anyone who has
only heard it in Paris.
Accidents still happen. Last week
Minnie Hauk', the great soprano was
kissing her pet parrot and the loqua
cious beast caught her viciously by the
lip and it required the most frantic
efforts of Count Von Hesse-Wartegg to
remove it. The wound became inflam
ed and the Countess was 'compelled to
cancel her London engagement. Min
nie should devote herself to kisses more
worthily bestowed. If it were almost
any other opera singer I should have
my doubts about that parrot story.
Anyway, its rather transparent.
Calve is down at her new place in the
Department of Aveyron in France feed
ing chickens. Really, that is what she
does, day in and day out and she is said
to experience the most exquisite satis
faction when her dear chicks and tur
keys flutter toward her every morning.
Well, what if they do? If they did not
know enough to 'flutter" toward the
person who feeds them they ought to be
sent to a feeble minded institute for
chickens. "Ah!" cries the radiant can
tatrice, "Ah, my chickens, how different
you are from the fickle world yonder,,
you would love me if I lost my beauty
and could not sing a note.' True, but
let Calve's granery give out and eee how
long her chickens would love her. Ah
a.
.
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