Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-12-04

ciAC E-%NC 10 wv III diI4cS III iiOAVIH /
life, founded on novels of Miss Bre-
mer and Charles Dickens.
On Miss Bremer's novel, "The |
Neighbors," is founded the drama
"Mother and Son." i'll which Mad
anne Janauschek plays the Countess
Mansfield. This lady, second wife
and now widow OF Count Mansfield,
has a son of her own, Bruno, and
two older step-sons, Andrew and
Stephen. To save Andrew from
ruin and disgrace, Bruno takes a
sum of money from his mothers
casket, is detected and driven from
home by his mother with curse.
The conflict between the wounded
pride which dictated this course and
maternal affection constitutes the
pathos of the play. In representing
this conflict, Madame Janauschek
demonstrates the difference between
a great artistic and the average con-
ventional actress. The latter would
have been content to have been
alternately very proud and stony
and again very affectionate and
gushing, and so would have played
two characters instead of one. The
true artist sees the necessity of doing
something beyond this, of fusing
together these conflicting elements
so as to harmonic them into the
unities of single character, SO as,
in short, 10 render their association
in one person possible conception.
Let us analyze the subtle method
by which this is effected. In her
hands the Countess Mansfield is an
aristOcrat of the very highest order;
not one who looks upon her rank as
exempting her from the rules of
conduct which bind ordinary NOR
tails, but as binding her to a strict
ness in their observance beyond
that incumbent upon less elevated
beings. NObJeSse ObLige;' if some
swerving from strict rectitude, some
faint shading of the snowy perfec-
ton of perfect purity were admissi-
bic in ordinary cases, not so in the
Countess Mansfeldt; she has to
transmit an unsullied name, a per-
feet example TO a race which has
preceded her and must come after
her, and thus high rank becomes
with her second conscience, a re-
ligion.
1t is discovered, then, that there
has been a theft in the house, that
strictly, steFnly-ordered household,
which is itself a beacon for all mems
example. AT first clerk of her
house-steward is under suspicion,
and she orders his public dismission
with disgrace. He intimates that
the true culprit is nearer to her
ladyship than an insignificant clerk,
and that when she knows him she
will be less rigid in her ideas of JUS
tice. This awakens the proud pa
trician in her, the second conscience.
She orders a strict investigation,
and, standing erect and towering,
swears that equal justice shall await
master or servant, whomsoever de-
lection shall overtake. Step by
step, as evidence is collected, suspi-
cion points to her son Bruno, her
only son, in whose person the spot
less reputation of the Mansfeidts
was to be transmitted to future ages.
Angry Indignation is the first feel
ing manifested, but by degrees, as
suspicion points more and more di-
rectIy to Bruno, a terrible agony
distOrts her features. At last the
youth arrives; it is late at night,
and he has been gambling; she
calls upon him frantically to dis
prove the charge, but very few
points of evidence bring it home to
him, and the Countess falls fainting
on a couch. AS she revives she pro-
ceeds to pronounce sentence on the
culprit; somebody suggests that
mothers love is incapable of such
trial she answers proudly that in
the assertion of strict justice she is
strong, and rises to her feet. We
have never seen anything on the
stage equal to the acting at this
point; it is as if human face, con-
vulsed with agony, gradually hard
ened ostone. She demands his con-
fession and gives him the OppOrtu-
nifty of stating any extenuating cir
cumstances but he too is Mans
feldt, and scoTns to vindicate his act
by discriminating his half-brother or
to propitiate his mother by confess
sion and penitence. She is now all
marble, and dismisses him from her
house with the curse of a nOb2e
name tainted with his disgrace,
and then falls insensible as the act
terminates.
In the subsequent acts we find
her entirely secluded from society,
and but rarely admitting even her
most intimate relations to her pres |
ence. The name of her son is for
hidden to be mentioned in her pres
ence any intercession is angrily !
repulsed as a soliciting 10 sin; JUS
tice must have its sway, and the /
feelings of maternity are crushed
down as culpable weaknesses which |
a Mansfield must not entertain. |
Here again the art of a consummate |
actress is brought out. She some |
times converses with her relatives, /
seems interested in their affairs,
and even talks with pleasantly
with them, but any men
ton of the banished son cOngeals
her to marble again. The persistent
misery of. the unhappy mother is
seen through all DISCUSSES the
mother may die of grief, but the
countess must continue implacable;
the honor of the MansfeldtS must be