The New Orleans Democrat. (New Orleans, La.) 1875-1876, 1876-03-26
MISS ANDERSON A. MEG MERRILIEs
A Rare IlnpersOnat ton.

twas bold and hazardous challenge,
every one said, for young novice to
risk her reputation in SO difficult role
w Meg Merrilies, while the memory OF
Charlotte Cushman was not only fresh,
but almost sanctified by her recent
death. But genius flouts failure to
scorn, and confident in her power,
though untried, Miss Anderson leaped
into the siege perilous, from which even
veterans shrunk, and has made good
her claim to it by right Of success.
The drama of Guy Mannering" Is
sngularly RECONSTRUCTED for the dis
play OF anything but the most narrow
and concentrated action. Meg appears
In but two acts, and really only In three
scenes--the first meeting with Bertrdn
after his return in manhood, the warn
ing to the Dominic, and the denouement
In the cave of Dick Hatteraick. Art
demands that she should be introduced
In the prime of her middle age when
driven, with her people, from the lands OF
Ellangowan, she prophe cies woe to the
present fortunes of the house, and their
restoration under the rising star Of the
childish heir. The impressive variety
and contrast which this would
offer to the working out OF
the DEGREES of fate sixteen years
later. in which she would now appear
as the central figure, and the intercala-
ton OF the lyke- wake of the slain gypsy
In which she unconsciously prefigures
her own doom and sings her own dirge.
would furnish ,he necessary diversity
Ia unity through which the sense OF
dramatic art Is satisfied and the reqni-
site play of character afforded to the
artist. In word, to use her own ex-
pressiye Scotch phrase, Meg Meyvilies
should "dree her weird" before the eyes
q her audience in order to awaken an d
sustain the interest that eliminates in
the final catastrophe by which she her
self is engulphed.
Nor Is it fair to ask, as seems to have
been generally done, whether Miss An
derson's Interpretation of the character
was Miss Cushman's. The character
belongs to Scott. Meg is no Egyptian ;
she is q Scotch woman-a gypsy by IN
heritance and habit; but Scotch to her
innermost fibre in race and feeling. She
isno queen of roost-robblng horde OF
Migrants, but the seer and leader OF q
clan, rooted to the soil, saturated with
It's traditions, gifted with the second
sight, and credited by the superstition
VI Vic uuy anu vi uCl poopio WIN S0O
Thing akin at least to supernatural pow
or. Whoever can so render this as to
bring it wildly and passionately home
70 the feeling Of her audience has made
the character essentially hers.
1t is still more unfair to expect that
any disguise can wholly conceal the ten.
der curves of girlhood, its suppleness OF
gait and gesture, its irrepresslble fresn.
ness Of tone. Art may subdue, but i
cannot annihilate nature. Thrust u
out with fork" and Horace says iii
will still come back again" Or, to use
an occidental figure = which a Ken
cuckian, at least, will understand as
we'll blame the coltish winner OF -four
mile race for running in a two-year'
form.
!, These, it seems to us, are some OF the
limitations under which Miss Ander
sons impersonation is to be judged, anc
within these we have no hesitation II
amrming that she achieved triumph
Of unexampled brilliancy.
Remember that only week since she
began the study of the play; that she
mad never seen it performed by any one
oeiore; that she brought with her to III
Interpretation onlyher own conceptions
and then recall the shudder that ran
through the vast audience that packed
The theatre on Friday night from pit t
dome, when, rushing into the outposts
o. the gypsy camp, she is stricken with
stony horror at the sight of young Ber,
ram, whom she has long believed dead
How exquisitely, again, she render
20 the cradle song, through when
sne hopes to arouse some dun
remembrance of his childhood
now sublime and mobile
we're the infections of manner will
which she turns again and again from
MIN to Ddndie Dinn,ont, as she hurried
youtlines her plans-the reawakenet
@nderness for the lost heir flooding al
ner heart, and alternating with tiger
Ike outbursts Of rage at Dandies' daz
q clownish fear and stupidity. An