THE COU t.
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The Passing Show.
WILLA CATHER.
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I have seen recently two old plays
revived, "The Lady of Lyons," pro
duced by E. II. Sothern, and ''The
Country Girl," produced at Daly's
theatre in New York, and I begin to
wonder why managers put on pieces
like "The Tree of Knowledge' and
"The Conquerors "
Now "The Lady of Lyons" is not a
great play; Buhvcr was not a great
nun. But it certainly discounts half
the stuff that is put on the boards to
day. The chief difficulty about pre
senting such a piece is the fact that it
has become hackneyed, weighted down
with traditions and laden with mem
ories of the fair lady stars who have
ranted through the cottage scene. The
more fact that Mr. Sothern himself
occupies the centre of the stage in
this particular production gives it a
touch of variety. The piece has been
preempted and dominated and tramp
ed upon by the fair Pauline long
enough; it is only fair that Claude
should have a chance.
Mr. Sothern has broken away from
the old traditions of the piece almost
entirely. In the first place his very
personality makes his Melnotte essen
tially different from those of the
great men who have played it before
him. For the lofty and semi-tragic
conception of the part which has be
come traditional, he has substituted
an ardent, fervidly romantic one. Bul
wer was not a sincere man, and the
greatest fault of his plays is that they
bear openly the mark of theatric in
sincerity. Mr. Sothern' s forte is that
in the most impossible situations ' he
can make you believe in his sincerity.
Nature has endowed him with a pair
of soulful eyes which are capable of
looking unspeakable anguish for hours
together, and would deceive the elect
themselves. He takes his caramel
heroics and his amorous woes so seri
ously that you have nothing left but
to do likewise. He goes at the anti
quated "Lady of Lyons' as if it were
an altogether new play and one of
vital importance, and for the time
being it becomes such.
The most remarkable thing about
his Claude is the absolute freshness
and firmness which he gives those
well-known lines. His reading is really
remarkable in its originality. In
that famous speech about the palace
by Lake Como he absolutely breaks
away from every tradition, and the
more pedantic critics have strenu
ously objected to it. But be that as
it may. his is the only probable or pos
sible reading I have ever heard of
those lines. He does not roll their
long syllables about as a sweet morsel
under his tongue; he does not expand
with pride at his own eloquence, he
shuns the very appearance of declama
tion. This Melnotte is no orator, but
a poet sighing to his lady. He sits a
little behind Pauline, hovering over
her. How that man can hover! ne
is past master in the art. He begins
to speak in a low tone, watching her
face as she leans back, ne reads the
lines almost brokenly, stopping short
at times to look forward into his lady's
eyes, watching only her face, caring
only for the effect of his words on her,
half forgetting himself that he is
lying to her, seizing with all his yearn
ing soul the opportunity to pour out
all the impassioned dreams of his
fancy to the woman who is mistress of
them.
"VcUfcavcaofrica
Tiat were aot lovers; no ambition save
To excel them all in love;
we'd read no books
That were not tales of love!"
Why, those lines were written for
Sothern! What other speech ever gave
such golden opportunities for hovering
and languishing! Of course he never
gets much further than hovering and
suffering: his leading ladies have to
be content with that.
I have seen Virginia Harried do
some very clever and charming work
in Anthony Hope's new play "Lady
Ursula," but in the cottage scene of
the "Lady of Lyons'' I must say she is
disappointing. Her faults of elocu
tion outnumber those of Margaret
Mather in that lady's palmy days.
She does not understand the first
principles of reading blank verse. She
rasps out the lines in a harsh, jagged,
incoherent fashion, and her scream is
like nothing so much as the squeal of
an infuriated kitten. I prefer to see
a lady remain a lady even when she is
angry and thereby lift the vulgar pas
sion of rage to a righteous indigna
tion. But Miss Harned behaves very
much like a cook who lias just re
ceived her two weeks' notice. I should
think Melnotte would have had dark
forebodings of the future. I fear me
that I do not appreciate Miss Har
ned's beauty, l wish she would go to
a boarding school and learn to hold
her shoulders up, and I hope that the
first thine Claude did after he finally
got the willowy Lady of Lyons was to
get her a pair of braces.
Mr. Sothern, however, quite outdoes
himself in the cottage scene. I did
not believe that any human being
could make those hackneyed remarks
on pride impressive, but he did. After
Pauline had finished her screeching
and screaming and had bowed her
head on the table, he turned a little
away from her, his face quivering
with emotion, his eyes looking their
wonted woe at the furniture, and
murmured slowly, to himself rather
than to her:
"Pauline, by pride
Angels have fallen ere their time!"
That line was a 1 riumph!
The ending of the fourth act was
splendidly worked up- When Claude.
despite the protests of the fair Pau
line, accepts a commission in the
army, the Marseillaise is heard out
side, the soldiers go marching by with
the tri-color, and he tears himself
from his clinging bride and rushes
out to join them. A perfectly absurd
and improbable thing of course, but
he does it well.
1, for one, quite forgot that "The
Lady of Lyons" was an old and a florid
play, so near to our own time and
feeling does this intense young man
bring it. Caramel heroics, do you eay?
Very well: for the time being I am
quite willing to declare that all the
world's a candy shop, men and women
but confectioners, and that caramels
are the best that life has to give.
Surely the gravest sin William
Winter has to answer for is the man
ner in which he has prejudiced people
against Ada Rehan. For ten years
or more the dramatic columns of the
Tribune have been devoted to tri
umphal paeans on this lady's art, and
the language has been drained dry of
eulogistic adjectives to describe her
beauty and charm. The object of such
unmitigated adoration is necessarily
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made ridiculous. With what awful
apprehension must Miss Rehan look
forward to those rhythmic notices in
the Tribune at which her good sense
must revolt! Scxt to having written
a play the greatest misfortune which
can befall an actress is to own a
critic.
"The Country Girl'' is, of course,
just doughty old Wycherley's "Coun
try Wife," expurgated first by David
Garrick and sterilized and refined by
Augustin Daly. Now from the nature
of William Winter's voluminous com
mentaries upon Miss Rehan's inter
pretation of the leading part I ex
pected to see a proper and discreet
and very "iady-like" Peggy Thrift,a
Peggy who might have come into town
from the green hills of Vermont. I
found instead a broad and adequately
vital piece of comedy work treated
with absolute freedom and fearless
ness. Mr. Daly has toned down and
refined to his heart's content, but
Miss Rehan has not. It was Wycher
ley's Peggy Thrift that I saw, a hoy
denish young romp without many fine
sensibilities, quite in harmony with
Wycherley's time and country. And
yet in playing this broad conception
the actress was never coarse. I think
it is because of her very fearlessness
that she never offends. Divest old
English comedy of its objectionable
language, and it is not so bad.
One can not help wondering at Miss
Rehan in boy's apparel. What a
sturdy, manly, full-blooded chap she
makes, how different from the poetic
languorous youths of Julia Marlowe!
And how eager for life and thirsty for
experiences is this clumsy Peggy
Thrift, this Peggy who is not afraid
to sprawl ungracefully upon a sofa or
to call things by their good old En
glish napies, or to joyously remark,
how different are the kisses of a Lon
don gallant from those of her grouchy
old guardian. 1 still laugh inconti
nently at the memory of this Peggy's
first experience of the divine flame,
which Wycherleydid notthinkdivine.
It was so entirely without sugar
coating, and yet so utterly inoffensive.
Next day when I was making the ac
quaintance of that criminally happj-,
Boston-banned bacchante of McMon
nies at the Metropolitan museum, 1
bethought me of this gleeful Peggy
Thrift in her love-making scene.
Miss Rehan really gave the part
that vigorous, spirited realism that
robustness which is the saving grace
of old English comedy. The lady
gives one the impression of a very
high and independent intelligence, of
a flexible and wholesome tempera
ment. I'll warrant she has a personal
fondness for the stout old English
classics and can read Fielding and
Sterne by the hour and laugh over
them. Everything considered, one
cannot greatly blame William Win
ter. It must mean a great deal to a
man who has spent his life in thank
less labor in a vineyard where the
fairest blossoms fade short of fruition
because the roots do not go deep
enough to at last find a penetrating
and discriminating intelligence like
Miss Rehan's
One cannot leave the performance
without a passing regret for poor old
William Wycherley, one of the first of
the countless playwrights who have
adapted French plots to English man
ners, and it was not wholly his fault
that the manners were bad. Match
him against Francoise Villon aad
there you have the history of the vice
of two nations in a nutshell: Villon at
his worst was picturesque, Wycherley
at his best, was disgusting. A pot
house brawler, the rival of a dissolute
king in the affections of a dissolute
woman, a scholar who gave himself
over to folly, a poet who shrivelled his
fancy at unhallowed fires, a genius
who poured out his treasure into the
filth of a London street and trampled
upon it, calling for the world to look
and laugh, forever strangling with
bloody hands the creative spirit that
would not die. He ended on a dung-heap-a
better playwright, construct
ively, than Monsieurs Paul Potter &
Co.. will ever be.
In New VorkI went to see Modjeska
in "Mary Stuart." 1 had not seen
her for six yea is and 1 was almost
afraid to go afraid that she might
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