The Portland daily press., 1881-01-31
Sweet Mary of the Blue Grass.
The Puzzle of the Stage.-The Despair of
the Critics.
IN. Y. Corr. Atlanta constitutional

IN. Y. Corr. Atlanta constitutional
Suppose we take turn through the theatres,
if for nothing else, to look up some old friends,
see what they are doing and how the world
moves with them.
OF course Sweet Mary of the blue grass, de-
serves and shall have the first attention. She
is the puzzle of the stage-the despair of the
critics. She is not so good an actress as she
was when l saw her three years ago. She has
mannerisms that then imperfections, are now
grievances. She has an amateurish accent,
which is simply to throw in an emphasis when
ever she catches her breath. She dismisses
sculliOn with the same grandeur of tone and
gesture that she detes queen, and drops as
many luscious thrills in her voice when she
COOS to the hawk on her wrist, as when she
confesses to the lover at her feet She is SO in
tense and dramatic in small things that she
loses naturalness, and discounts her really
great scenes. Her mouth has actually become
so sensitive that she can't hold it still, and an
ugly frown has cut its deep burrows on her
virgin forehead, 1 am afraid she could not
eat an oyster without the same dilated eyes,
quivering mouth and painting postrils with
which she greets the poison or the dagger on
tu6 SldS6. On6 has OVer-dCUeQ l6rSGlI, Her
gasplng paroxysms have none of the power
that Clara Morris shows when she is swept
along shuddering and broken in the throbs of
some great passion, but have an automatic and
periodic recurrence that suggest nervous dis
order.
And yet how charming she is-and how the
people flock to see her. saw her last night as
"Ion'-the young boy who sacrifices himself
for his country-and daintier picture than
she made have never seen on the stage or off
n ~ fiOrIrQ Ic ay,d har ct..r ,c
that OF the fawn. AS / contrasted her slender,
natural form, with its maidenly curves and
graces, with the tight, plump, exact curves
and calves OF the Pomeroys and Davenports,
could not help thinking how much more cum
ming is nature than an artifcer, and flesh and
blood than springs and pads She is the best
Parthenia L ever saw, and the best Eyadne,
believe, that ever powdered her snowy neck.
In these classical impersonations she is stead
Ter, happier and purer, and she looks the
Grecian maiden to the life. A thousand times
have held out my hand in grasping sympathy
with that wild-eyed, loose-cellared son of the
West, who after seeing her play Ingomar,
wrote it down that "if she'd turned her great
limpid eyes on us, and held out her lovely
arms and cried Ingomar, In-g-omar with her
juicy voice, we'd a crawled to her feet, if we'd
had to wriggle over an acre of red-hot Goals to
get there" And SO the people think, for they
go in shoals to see her, II she would only take
year of rest, and make it a year of reflection
and study and quiet, she would reappear on
the stage Incompatible. But she is playing to
$4,000 a week now, and Step-father Griffin sits
up with the cash-box, so 1 suppose she will go
on as she is. The ladies may be interested to
know that her diamonds, bought in Paris and
London and st. Louis have not been over de-
scribed, but are superb and fitting crown to
her toilets; and the men may be interested in
knowing that she is not narried and not likely
to be. She is welded to her art, and she may
follow Boucicault's advice indefinitely, and
not spoil the prettiest picture of the stage, nor
rob it of the auroral freshness that envelopes
It like a charm