Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-02-20
LOCAL INTELLIGENCE.
THE DRAMA.

LOCAL lNIELLlGENCE.
THE DRAMA.
Miss Fanny Davenport In I" Pique.'
1t is great pity that so distinguished
and talented All actress as Miss Fanny
Davenport, for whose appearance our play
going people had been waiting on the tiptoe
should have chosen from her
extensive repertoire a very inferior role in
a very stupid and inane play in which to
greet the large audience and fashion
able audience that assembled at Full
ton opera house to see her last
night. Mr.. Augustin Daly's play of
"Pique' is little il any better than
half dozen other productions of his some
what prolific pen. He wrote "Divorce "
and lied Astray, and several more of
that ilk, and the favor they ever met with
was only temporary, while nearly all of his
earlier productions have been borne to the
bourne of oblivion, whence not even the
talismanic power of a great actors name
will ever be likely to resurrect them.
'Pique is just like the rest of them, and
that Miss Davenport has not long since
discarded it is one of the mysteries of the
modern drama. To be sure it caters to
the popular taste for the society "
drama, but the morsel it furnishes is so
insipid that it scarcely repays the mastica-
tion. A proud beauty, besieged by a
score of suitors, gives her hand to one of
them in a moment of anger OH the dis
cOvery of the treachery of a man to whom
a few moments previous she had con
fessed her love. Such marriage
could of course bring no happiness with it.
The fond and loving husband takes his
bride on the European trip, and returning
with her year after finds her affection
estranged from him as far as ever. At last
he is spurred to resentment to her repeated
Sights, and when, losing all command OF
herself through fancied indignity put
upon her by her husbands father, she tells
her husband the truth, that she never did
and never would love him, and that she mar
ricd him purely out of spite, her husband
rushes madly from her presence, swearing
never to see her again. The reunion is
brought about through a series of highly
improbable events and exaggerated situa-
tiOns. So many of the scenes are over
drawn, the lights and shadows so injudic'
iously arranged, that the Judgment OF the
average spectator is apt to repel the impu.
tation sought to be put upon it, and the
trick of smuggling in a lot of irrelevant
and usually stupid dialogue in order to re.
lieve the strain has the sole result of add,
ing to the length without enhancing the
interest, but ON the contrary rather adding
to the tedium of the play. The villain
Raymond Lesstng) to all interests and pur
poses, moreover, comes out at the top of
the heap. lie it is who first wins the love
of the society belle (lftbel Renfre,r) whom
he discartls moment afterwards OH learn,
ing that she is destitute of fortune, and
proceeds to make love to her rich step.
mother (LuciUe Rentre@). During the
course of events he recOnsiders the matter
and finds his way to the home of his
old love now i'm the vale of humiliation as
the suffering wife of Captain !Standtsh,
whom she had driven from her by her cru
city, only to learn his worth and nobility
and her love for him after he had gone.
Here the villain renews his prOtestations
of love and is Indignantly spurned by the
aroused wife. He promptly makes his
way back to New York, where he again
makes love to the rich stepmother who
seems to he rather nice sort of Il woman,
and We find him turning up in the last act
as reformed " villain and the affianced
husband of the rich stepmother.
This was the play in which Miss Daven-
port appeared last night, and she made
the best possible out Oh the poor material
in her hands. She is 4 fine actress, and in
the scenes calling for the display of pas
sion, pathos, scorn, humility, love and
hatred, she rose to the situation in grand
style, the play of her features, the expires.
sion of her eye, and every movement OF
her body betokening the feeling intended
to be conveyed. The transforma-
ton from the brilliant beauty ol
the ball room in the first act to the dissat-
isfied wife in the second, and to the broken
hearted woman of the later stages of the
play, was remarkable. At the conclusion
of the second act she was called before the
curtain with Mr.. Price, who in the last
scene of this act did about the only ef1ec-
tive work he can be credited with during
the entire evening, his personation OF
Captain Standish, the injured husband,
being generally unsatisfactory in the less
classic term of popular cant the gallant
captain was stick. Mr.. f. X. Collier
did what he had to do as IMatthew Standish,
in capital style, the role calling for the
exercise Of judicious care III not OVERRIDING
the part. Mr.. Harry Hawk was excellent
as Sammy olympic, and Mr.. Geo. w. Wes-
sells made about as forbidding looking a
tramp as it is possible to imagine. Miss
Emma Maddern, as Raitch, captured full
share of favor by her bright ingenious face
and the naturalness of her acting and
Misses Emma Pierce, Minnie Monk and
Fanny MOntcastle as Hurry Standish, Aunt
Dorothy and Lucille Renfrem respectively,
did everything that could reasonably be
expected of them.
Musical Rehearsal.
The study hall of the girls high school
presented lively scene last evening at the
rahearsal Of tho hOvs and rirIS un6er di